Naruto of the Hyoton
by Wolka
Summary: Naruto Yuki is a boy found in the aftermath of Orochimaru's departure from Konoha. With nothing to indicate his past aside from the Hyoton bloodline, he must carve out a new future for himself alongside the new generation of Konoha Shinobi. Female Haku
1. Reforging a Potential Shinobi

**I don't own Naruto**

'_Minato will succeed me as the Yondaime.' _

The pale visage of the man with eerie slitted eyes, reminiscent of a snake, stalked out of the Hokage tower shaking with anger.

'_How dare that old man name that blonde headed fool Hokage.'_ He snarled silently, as he made his way through the village. The people he walked past unconsciously moving to the sides to avoid him. The Snake Sennin frowned as he thought of that bastard of a Shinobi, Minato Namikaze who had taken the Hokage position from him. He was nothing compared to Orochimaru, and yet he had taken all that Orochimaru wanted, no deserved. A frown transformed his face into something truly monstrous as he saw a kid that reminded him of the man, before just as suddenly a smile came across his serpentine face, there was a way to get the perfect revenge on that man. Smiling he walked towards the house that Namikaze had bought recently, he had had a kid, called Nematode, or Nawatoad or some other ridiculous name. And the perfect way to punish Namikaze for taking away the Hokage position from him would be by taking Namikaze's kid away from him.

Walking into the building he knew that the only person inside would be a babysitter. Stealing up to the room, he quickly knocked the Genin watching the kid unconscious, smirking as she fell to the ground. Walking forward he picked up the bawling brat, looking at the whisker marked child, a sick and twisted smile graced his features,

"Kukukuku, you will make a perfect test subject if I do say so myself, won't you Nematode?"

The famous Uzumaki vitality would be perfect for what he had planned. He reached out and clamped a hand over the child's mouth and began to make his way to his lab, stopping to pick up the genin's body, he'd see if he could give this one a bloodline, maybe that new ice one he'd acquired in the war.

Leaving the house, not bothering to shut the door behind him, he couldn't help but think it was perfect, he had the kid and the village would no doubt blame Iwa or Kumo. It was impossible for him to be caught at this point, his genius ensured that. Making his way down the street, passing everyone unnoticed thanks to a simple cloaking Genjutsu and he was away, disappearing into the crowd, with the yellow flashes legacy tucked under his arm and a new Genin to experiment on, both of which would bring him one step closer to his goal. Nonchalantly he wondered if the kid would be able to make those Chakra chains his mother was famous for, it was a very a useful ability and well worth acquiring, he thought before he disappeared into the bowels of the Hokage monument where his genetics lab was located.

* * *

Minato smiled, not only was he going to be Hokage but he had a beautiful wife and son, looking over at his sensei Jiraiya, who was beaming with pride at the fact that it was his apprentice that had beaten Orochi-teme for the hat, he couldn't help but think life couldn't get much better than this. Sarutobi turned and looked back at everyone in the room, which consisted of Jiraiya, the third's old team mates, Kushina and Minato himself. Orochimaru had left when it was announced that Minato would succeed the Third as the Fourth Hokage, he hadn't looked too pleased about that upon reflection, but that was just the icing on the cake for Minato, he'd never liked that Snake bastard. There was something off about him, he lacked the will of Fire, Minato suddenly thought, yes that was what it was, nodding sagely to himself while hardly listening to what the Third was saying, he returned to thinking about his son.

With the conclusion of the third great Ninja war, Konoha had emerged one again as the most powerful of the great villages, although it had come at a cost, and while there were countless dead, at least the village would have time to rebuild and recover before the next war. At that he sighed, it seemed an inevitable cycle of hatred was what drove the ninja villages, it was certainly not what the Sage of Six Paths had wanted, Minato thought before he returned to what Sarutobi was saying.

"So as to what I would suggest now is following Minato's coronation, the village needs to focus on missions. Naturally I'll still be around to help out but Jiraiya, with the war coming to a close I would say that now would be an ideal time to set up an intelligence network so we're prepared for whatever will come in the intervening years. Is there anything anyone wishes to say?" he finished looking around the room and at everyone's shaking heads he smiled and said, "Well in that case, everyone is dismissed." Minato stood up with the dismissal and along with Kushina and Jiraiya after nodding to the others left to go and check on their son, Naruto.

It was Uncanny how much the kid looked like himself Minato thought as they made their way towards the couples new house. Although those whisker markings would make him a hit with the girls, no doubt Jiraiya would be able to make some great Icha Icha based on the kid in the future. He smiled at that thought; no doubt Kakashi would love the kid just for that reason. Rounding the corner and looking at the house which he and his small family lived in he frowned when he saw that the door was open, 'it shouldn't be open', he thought a frown marring his face a glance showed that Kushina was concerned as well, Jiraiya hadn't picked up on the mood and was leering at a girl, less than half his age through a shop window, beginning to panic slightly he walked into the house, his pace increasing slightly until he was running up the stairs his wife just behind him. Rushing into his son's room he noticed two things, one his son was not there and two there was no evidence of a struggle, his son was just gone. A low cry came from behind him and he saw Kushina with tears in her eyes looking at the place where little Naruto had been just hours ago. Jiraiya he noticed had arrived and looked just as shocked, Minato felt tears gathering in his eyes as he turned looking at the other two he managed to keep his voice level as he stated "The Hokage must be informed of this." The others managed to nod before they turned and sprinted back the way they had come, 'how could this happen?' Minato wondered as he rushed to keep up with his wife, flinching as he felt the Kyuubi's chakra react to the emotional state of his wife. Come hell or high water they would find his son.

Bursting into the Hokage's office, Sarutobi looked shocked that they were back after leaving less than ten minutes ago. Even more shocking was the emotional state they were in the reflected as he looked closer at their faces. "Is something wrong?" He asked gently in his best grandfather voice, wouldn't do to upset the kids now he thought, why it was only yesterday that he remembered Kushina arriving from Uzushiogakure. His trip down memory lane was cut off when Minato gasped out "Naruto's gone!"

"What?" the words escaped Hiruzen's mouth before he could process them, looking at the devastated parents of the little, blue eyed, blonde haired boy and his Godfather, who didn't seem to know what to think about the situation, seemingly torn between tearing the Village Hidden in the Leaves apart to find him and just sitting down to bawl his eyes out.

"We, we came back and the door was open and he's gone, him and the Genin who's supposed to be watching him, it's like they were never there." Kushina managed to get out before she collapsed on the ground tears and demonic Chakra mixing in the air around her.

Minato himself looked lost, the young man was staring at Hiruzen with an absent look in his eyes, a seeming gateway to the void, certainly they lacked the usual spark so full of life that usually resided in his eyes.

Hiruzen himself was shocked, few people knew about the birth, fewer still where the Namikaze house was located, still he was not the longest serving Kage for nothing, pulling himself together he glanced at the broken couple and super pervert before him, they were certainly going to be no help, the thought bounced around in his brain before he reached a decision. Barking out an order for his Secretary, when she entered the room and before she could see the state that the most famous man in Konoha was in, the Monkey Summoner roared out, "I want every Shinobi, bar the academy students out and searching for a blonde boy with blue eyes and whisker marks, the kid is of vital importance to village security!" He was of course, there was a specific reason that Uzumaki's were used as the Konohan Jinchūriki's and it had everything to do with the fact that their more concentrated Chakra meant a greater control over the beast, an essential when dealing with the biggest remaining part of what had once been the Jubi. The Uzumaki's, now Namikaze's had a vital role to fulfil for the village's security and that boy had to be recovered at all costs. "What of the Genin, watching little Naruto-chan?" he asked remembering that little fact in the brief lull between the storm of emotion now hitting him.

"Gone as well, you don't think...?" Kushina began but the Third waved his hand silencing her,

"It's impossible to know, we'll have a clearer picture once the search begins, you are all in no position to participate, I'll handle this you go and rest."

"No, I can help," Jiraiya managed to get out, "let me do my part sensei."

"It wasn't a request Jiraiya, go now." the tone of finality in his voice ensured that they obeyed him and regretfully they departed, leaving the aged leader to deal with the latest disaster to affect the first of the Hidden villages.

As soon as they were informed, the majority of the Shinobi forces present in the village were on high alert and searched throughout the village for the famed Yellow flashes son. Even Orochimaru had emerged from his lab to participate; of course he only did so to throw off suspicion despite the fact that there was none on him in the first place. 'There were so many benefits to being the favourite student of the God of Shinobi.' He thought as he absently searched a ditch on the outskirts of the village for the 'missing' boy.

Weeks passed and reluctantly the search was called off. The Genin was assumed to have defected with the boy as payment and Naruto was given up as lost. The only comfort that could be given to Minato and Kushina was the fact that the girl's family were disgraced, but it was a cold comfort and did little for the gaping hole that the event had left in their hearts.

* * *

Meanwhile Orochimaru retreated to his lab and had made several startling discoveries, after much testing on the Genin, he had never bothered to learn the girl's name. He worked out that there was no way that he could forcibly insert bloodlines into ordinary people's bodies, which meant that the resurrection Jutsu he was working on would need to be used on people with bloodlines, which in turn meant that the curse seals that influenced people's thoughts would need to be used on those with greater willpower. He frowned at that, that little fact would complicate things, and it also meant that he would have to leave the village, while he had no love for it; Konoha like any other provided a security that was unavailable to a nukenin.

However despite this set back he made a number of discoveries about young Naruto, the first was that at some point his ancestry must include a member of the Yuki clan, as he carried the genes for their Kekkei Genkai; it was very weak however and would never activate naturally. The other startling discovery were the traces of Demonic Chakra running through the baby's chakra coils, further tests ascertained that this demonic chakra was a remnant of spending ten months in Kushina's body prior to his birth, but this was of minor importance compared to the Hyoton genes that the boy carried and the fact that his chakra was strong enough to handle some alterations to the coils, as a result Orochimaru could forcibly give the child the Hyoton bloodline.

After much preparation the procedure had been carried out and it was a great success, with the added benefit that the Yuki DNA that he had overridden Minato's with meant that the boy who had originally been born of Minato and Kushina now had a genetic structure that suggested that his mother was Kushina while his father was a member of the Yuki clan who was killed several years ago during the third war, originally Orochimaru had collected his DNA for research purposes but this was a much better use for it, at least in the man's twisted mind.

Over time the boy's physical characteristics changed to reflect his new cellular structure, with his blonde spiky hair fading to a dark red, which slowly straightened out as well as his tanned skin becoming a more pale shade reminiscent of the famed clan of ice wielders and the whisker marks that identified him as the child of a Jinchūriki faded away entirely, while his eyes, lacking the pigments that made them blue, faded to a slate grey. He couldn't have wished for a better outcome, there had been some concern on his part that the boy looked far too much like his father to have been seen in public, but this way the chances of anyone connecting him to Minato were minimal. The Uzumaki themselves had scattered after the fall of Uzushiogakure, so it wasn't totally unbelievable that one would have ended up with the Yuki, or run into a Yuki as they fled the purges. In any case, it meant that he had managed to kill the son without taking the life of the boy, something that appealed to the scientist in him.

* * *

"Minato? Can I talk to you for a moment?" the man looked up when his wife spoke, blonde hair framing a face that had rapidly come to be one of the most famous on the continent. A slight smile overcame his face as he looked Kushina in the eye. She looked a lot happier; radiant even, something that hadn't been at all common over the last year.

He himself wasn't any happier at the situation they had found themselves in, waiting for the time that their son reappeared, no doubt under the banner of Iwa, kidnapping just didn't seem to be in the style of the new Raikage, and thus the general opinion on the perpetrator's went to Iwa. Danzo, the only other option, only ever took orphans that no one wanted, not the children of sitting Kage's.

"Sure what is it?" he asked, even managing to smile himself, something that happened far too infrequently these days to himself as well.

"I'm pregnant!" she exclaimed, and for a brief moment, looking like the little girl who had said she was going to be Hokage. The man grinned; she had acted like this last time as well.

"That's great!" he responded, getting caught up in the emotion charged conversation and forgetting momentarily about the Academy budget.

"I know! After everything that's happened I thought well you know…" she trailed off, casting her eyes downward even as a flash of pain appeared in Minato's eyes, reminding them that they had been through this before and it hadn't worked out so well.

"Yes, well we're just going to have to be more careful this time around." He said hesitantly, not sure himself how those words were supposed to be comforting. She nodded and smiled again, it just wasn't in her nature to be down about something when there was something else to be happy about.

"So when is the baby due?" he asked hesitantly. Already preparing to change his schedule to accommodate what would be a major occasion in both their lives.

"**She**, will be due on October the tenth." His wife proclaimed with a smirk on her face, prompting an even wider grin from her husband. '_well a daughter will be nice.' _He thought, truthfully he would take anything that served as an opportunity to put this last year behind him.

* * *

Water dripped down from the rocky ceiling, making a steady _drip-drip_ noise even as Sarutobi led his team slowly through the underground catacombs that they found themselves in. He didn't want to believe it but the elder Shinobi was beginning to think that the allegations against his student may actually have some grounding. The occasional hiss of the countless snakes haunting the area, adding even more evidence onto what was already looking like a disaster in the making for the Hidden Leaf Village. He shook his head trying to eliminate the thoughts that were crowding his elderly but still sharp mind, he couldn't afford to be distracted here, and they had already lost two men already, well technically one man and a woman.

Finally a door came into view, and he crouched behind it, waiting for the sole remaining men of his team. Tori and Tora quickly took positions for the standard ANBU assault procedure to be carried out. Sarutobi grunted he was far too old to be doing this, '_It should be Minato…'_ He crushed that trail of thought, Minato had done his duty, just as Hiruzen was doing his now. A few hand gestures and the door exploded into splinters even as he and his men charged into the room, prepared for anything.

XXX

He thought he was going to be sick, the bodies chained to the wall, the test tubes, all confirming that if nothing else, his teammates had been right to suspect his student. He had never thought he could be so disgusted with another human being.

"Orochimaru! What have you done!" he exclaimed as he saw that it was without a doubt his prized student, the one that he had once told Jiraiya, so long ago would be the one succeeding him. It seemed like a cruel joke now that this had come to light.

"Well I guess the cats out of the bag now, I'm creating perfection Sensei! I'll be the first in the world to learn every jutsu there is!" Absently he took note of the maniacal gleam in his student's eyes, the hint of madness that had always been there seemed to have blossomed, and that scared him more than the bodies here did.

"You're not trying to…" The aged Hokage began but stopped when one of the most prized ninja of Konoha began to laugh, it was a cruel, dark mocking sound, one that most people had only heard slightly before they died.

"Yes, Sensei" the pale man began, "I'm creating the spell of immortality!" the last part had a slight tone of bitterness to it, something that Hiruzen had only just picked up on, and that ability owed more to the years he had spent as both a ninja and a politician that any real ability to read his student.. '_Ahh, so that's what this is."_ He thought, his mind quickly drawing what he suspected to be the most likely reason for this behaviour, it always came back to peoples childhood's he thought bitterly.

"Monster!" Tori yelled out, his sister had been one of the Chunin that had gone missing, and the only thing restraining him was his training.

"So are you going to kill me Sensei?" the man continued, Sarutobi snarled and made the hand gestures and offered the blood, as Enma was pulled into the realm. Orochimaru in turn flipped through some seals and the light s, which offered the only illumination in the complex exploded into countless shards, the gas that they contained mixing with the other smells that filled what amounted to a torture house.

He felt the hand push him to the ground and he lashed out blindly, but it was a pointless action, even if he was able to see, he wouldn't have been able to kill his prized student.

He caught the man's eye briefly before he was gone, and he was left there lying on the ground, Jiraiya would pursue him, and for that Sarutobi was thankful to his student, it would mean he wouldn't have to deal with the pain of killing off the one who had once been his favourite.

XXX

This room was cleaner; it seemed this was where the completed experiments were kept, rather than the experimenting room where he had found Orochimaru. Sarutobi repressed a grimace. Before looking around, apart from the test tubes and charts there didn't seem to be any of the corpses that usually populated the complex's rooms.

"Don't come any closer, I can and will kill you!" He didn't miss the fear that lay under the iron willed statement and he was instantly wary upon hearing the voice in what he had assumed to be an empty room, but relaxed very slightly upon seeing an eleven year old. While he wasn't afraid of the boy, you only needed to look at Dragon and see what an eleven year old could do and that was without factoring in whatever his student had done to the boy in front of him.

"You're not the snake man?" the boy asked when he saw Hiruzen and his guards appear.

"No, I've come to stop him." The Hokage said, making his voice as soothing as it could be, and was rewarded with the boy calming down.

"It's alright." The boy said to someone behind him. And Hiruzen caught a flash of red before a second boy, this one red headed ,was standing in front of him, looking at him with dull grey eyes, ones that he had only seen on the children who were packed off to the front lines. He was unable to repress a shudder as he thought about what the two children in front of him had been through.

"Hello what's your name?" he asked the youngest boy. The boy looked at him for a moment before turning to the older one who nodded. The boy looked at him with his so serious eyes and replied.

"Subject zero zero four." Hiruzen immediately lost his smile and the boy shrank back a bit, but held his ground otherwise.

"Here." The older boy said as he thrust something into his hands, that Sarutobi realised were medical records or at least something similar. He quickly scanned the records, there wasn't much, the boy, named Tenzo was the sole remaining subject who had been injected with the Shodai's cells, and the younger one was according to this a successful cross between the Uzumaki and Yuki, a clan that Hiruzen knew little about other than they were bloodline wielder's from Kiri. According to this, the bloodline was confirmed in the boy. The more practical and ruthless side of himself was pleased, they may have lost Orochimaru but they had gained two children with Kekkei Genkai, a fairly even trade in many ways.

His eyes returned to looking at his two new charges, he had automatically begun to think of them like that, they were the creation of what was his biggest mistake and as such he was in charge of them. However he couldn't look after another child, he was already trying to pick up the pieces of his own broken family without factoring in another two. And on top of that he had to deal with the problems besetting his village after the Kyūbi attack. He sighed, why were things never simple.

"Get me Dragon," he said turning to Tora, "He has a new assignment." Maybe this would prove to be beneficial to the man as well; Kakashi had never really been the same after what happened three years ago. Like the village, he was reeling from one disaster after another, maybe this would return the man to some level of functionality.

* * *

"Naruto can you come in here?" the silver haired man asked patiently, his one visible eye somehow managing to make what seemed like a smile when the boy in question came into what served as their living room.

"Yes Niisan?" The red headed boy asked, grey eyes alight with curiosity. Kakashi smiled at that, it had taken him more than a year but two years on since he was given Naruto to look after and partial responsibility for Tenzo, the boy was finally acting like a kid his age should. He had chosen to name the boy after his Sensei's son, a way to honour the man who had been as much his own father as Sakumo had been. The fact that the two boys were the same age and could claim the same clan, Minato himself having come from a ninja family rather than a clan, had only cemented the decision for Kakashi.

"Naruto, The Hokage has decided that now's the best time to tell you, about this, but the man, who had you before Hokage-sama found you, did some stuff to you; one of those things gave you a rather unique ability that will help you as a ninja." He stopped and mentally berated himself; he could have expressed that better than he had.

The boy looked at him, grey eyes developing a slight gleam as the boy processed what had been said. He was clever for a six year old, Kakashi wasn't sure but the child likely wasn't far off being considered a genius, he had certainly taken to the small lesson's that Kakashi and Tenzo occasionally gave him like water to a sponge. It filled Kakashi with a sense of pride, which now that he thought about it, was likely the same one that other Jonin got when their students accomplished something, maybe he should look into taking a team, the feeling was quite addictive.

"Like your eye?" the boy asked after a few moments. Kakashi beamed underneath his mask.

"Yes, exactly but you don't have eyes like mine." He snorted at the huff of annoyance the boy gave out when he heard that, the boy may be good for his age but he was an open book to Kakashi.

"Something like Tenzo-Nii then?" the boy said asking about the only other person who had a bloodline that he could think off. He clearly didn't have anything like what Hana-Chan had, but she had said what her clan had wasn't a bloodline so that was already out of the question.

"Yes, exactly! It took us a while to work it out, but you'll likely be able to use ice based ninjutsu."

"Is that strange?" the boy asked the curiosity again evident in his voice.

"Yes, there are only five elements that most people can use, and most people will never bother with more than two, if that." The boy nodded filing it away for later like he did with everything. Kakashi nodded, that was all he needed to say, now that he knew Naruto would likely practice on his own, and Kakashi would be no help here in any case.

"Was there anything else?" the boy asked, squirming in his seat, eager to be off to do something else. That was the other thing Kakashi liked about him, the boy was quiet and didn't bother him unless he really needed help, leaving plenty of time for Icha Icha. Certainly he was a departure from the other two Uzumaki's Kakashi had come into contact with.

With that his thought's turned to a little blonde girl who even now was living in an apartment by herself, who was always saying she was going to be Hokage. Kakashi frowned at that and then thought of an idea that was arguably one of the best he had ever had. Eventually Naruto was going to want to move out, the apartment just wasn't big enough for the both of them, probably when he graduated, so he'd get him to move in Next door to Mito, and then Naruto could keep an eye on sensei's Daughter, it was perfect.

Kakashi giggled to himself, maybe they'll end up together, and Kushina would be pleased to think the Uzumaki's would live on in a way. He stopped giggling when he saw Naruto eying him suspiciously. Wordlessly Kakashi turned around and went back to find out what Ayiarij and Edanust were going to do now that her mother had left them alone in the clan house, he giggled again, how he loved Icha Icha.

* * *

Naruto looked around the class, taking as much in as his eight year old mind could. There were relatively few people who he would have classed as anything approaching a challenge, Rock Lee and Neji were both better than he was at Taijutsu, not that he cared much. Lee was pretty good fun and the boy needed to be good at something. Neji was possibly the most arrogant person he had met, reminding him of how Kakashi-Niisan said he used to act, and thus unless they were sparring Naruto had as little to do with the Hyuga and his freaky eyes as he could. Other than those two, there was Tenten no last name, an orphan girl who was freakishly accurate with weapons, and Yamanaka Rin, who while she didn't really stand out at anything, she was still good enough to be ranked second behind Tenten. His musings were interrupted by a soft snore next to him and he grinned before unobtrusively kicking the boy next to him awake.

Nara Yamatchi was possibly the laziest person he had met, and that was including Kakashi. Although the boy claimed his uncle the clan head was worse. He was also Naruto's best friend, and had been ever since he had latched onto the red head last year when their academy education had begun. His other dubious claim to fame was successfully earning the ire of their sensei Iruka in less than a year, and often bought the scar faced man's wrath down upon the two of them. It was something that had happened far too often for Naruto be comfortable with leaving his friend to sleep during class. He ignored the spluttering as the boy woke up and discounting Iruka's droning voice, returned to looking at the rest of the class.

The other students were mostly minor members of the clans that made up the majority of the Shinobi forces and civilians who thought the Shinobi lifestyle would be 'fun' and 'exciting', in turn there were a number of fan girls and the odd boy, there for the express purpose of netting themselves a 'cool' ninja boyfriend or girlfriend, much to Naruto's Chagrin. It turned out that he was sufficiently cute to be deemed acceptable; although it probably didn't help that he was ranked second in the class either.

Oddly enough despite living with him, Kakashi had had very little noticeable influence on Naruto as he neither wore a mask or had any of Kakashi's other tendencies, a white tee shirt with the Yuki clan marking on his breast pocket coupled with grey Shinobi pants and the usual sandals, made up his usual mode of dress, and seeing as he never felt the cold, a benefit of coming from a clan that made its home amidst the snow he supposed, he had never needed to wear a jacket or a coat. He sighed before returning his attention to his teacher, it was boring but necessary, and as a result he would ensure that he would succeed in this and everything else Iruka could throw at him.

* * *

Several years passed and little changed, aside from rumours of a blonde girl who was completely hopeless joining the class below him, he paid it no mind. He enjoyed the lessons about being a Shinobi and looked forward to the day that he would graduate and begin to serve the village that had done so much for him since he was found.

The outside world touched him little as he was praised for his near perfect chakra control, a rare feat in a male and all the more so considering the large chakra reserves he had for his age. However the near annihilation of the Uchiha by their greatest prodigy Itachi left its mark as it meant that the time had come for Kakashi to return to ANBU, helping to keep up the image that Konoha was still strong, even as the various disasters that seemed to strike every few year began to mount up.

Naruto by nature was a reserved boy, and while he got on well enough with other people, none could claim to be his friend like Yama could. Neji was possibly the only one to have anything more than a couple of conversations with the boy and even then their relationship was more a rivalry than anything else.

* * *

Naruto sighed as he walked toward the building where his new apartment was located, walking up the ancient and creaking steps, a quick glance confirmed his suspicions about the buildings quality, _'hmm let's see, mould, in dire need of a paint job and entirely lacking in any effort to make it even remotely appealing.' _It certainly wasn't anything like Kakashi-niisan's place.

Looking around he frowned when he saw that for all intents and purposes he was the only person here, indeed it looked like he was the only person who even lived in the ancient if gargantuan complex. He vaguely remembered the Hokage saying that there was one other person who lived here. As he searched for his apartment number, he wondered why there was only one person here, the Hokage had looked sad when he asked why and simply said he didn't know, maybe the other resident was a cannibal or something? He laughed at that a Cannibal in Konoha he doubted that he'd be allowed to go anywhere near a Cannibal, he or rather his bloodline held too much value to Konoha to simply let it go. Eventually he found the number that corresponded with the number on the piece of paper the Hokage had given him and opening the door he walked inside.

It was a nice enough place. He decided as he looked at the musty apartment, a thick layer of dust covering all the furnishings which had been provided for some reason. He put it down to another attempt to convince him that it was a good idea to stay in Konoha, that got another laugh out of him, he had heard from some of the merchants that came through what it was like for bloodline clan member's in Mizu no Kuni, and it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go. Setting the storage scrolls that Kakashi had given him to help him move down on the table he walked to the window and looked out, there was a spacious grassy area that he guessed was intended for residents to train in. He sighed again, it would be interesting he supposed to live by himself, of course Kakashi would be stopping by he assumed and it wasn't like his friends from the Academy would desert him, plus there was the possibility of be befriending his cannibal neighbour. Looking at the scroll, which contained all his worldly possessions, he groaned, he'd unpack latter, might as well explore the neighbourhood and introduce himself to the neighbours. '_Neighbor'_ he mentally corrected himself. He hoped they weren't civilians; they always tried to set him up with their kids. As he headed to the door, he heard the one next to him slam open and a shout of "Dattebayo!" echoed around the empty complex, he hid a smile maybe this was why it was deserted. A moment later he heard the pounding of feet as someone rushed down the stairs. Figuring it was better now than latter, Naruto followed at a less breakneck pace; rounding the corner he saw what appeared to be a blonde girl, who must have been a year younger than him, wearing the most revolting jacket and pants he thought he had ever seen. They were Orange with a red swirl like the Jonin vests on it, Naruto filed that away for future reference, it obviously meant something, and it could be worthwhile finding out what it meant. He continued his study of the girl until she turned around, he noticed that he had whisker like birthmarks on her cheeks; they looked kind of cute he thought absently.

"Yatta!" his examination of the girl was stopped when she suddenly yelled and rushed towards him, "Who are you!"

"Naruto Yuki" was his reply, grinning as her face scrunched up in a very expressive indication that she was thinking.

"Are you a Pervert?" she demanded eying him suspiciously,

"No, I live here" he replied outwardly he was calm but on the inside he was sniggering, pervert indeed, maybe she had met Kakashi-niisan before.

Her face scrunched up again, before she relaxed and said, "I know, you came to steal my super awesome ninja moves didn't you? Admit it!" she said, screaming the last part at him. It was all so ridiculous he thought, wincing at the shrill sound.

Recovering he looked her evenly in the eye, and talking very slowly stated, "I'm ranked second in my class, why would I want to steal any moves from an orange pipsqueak like you?"

"Because I'm Mito Uzumaki, future Hokage, and orange is awesome!" she screamed at him again. And with that, Naruto quickly began to realize why the apartment complex was deserted. Staring at the strange girl, he wondered if it was too late to ask the Hokage for a different apartment.


	2. From Child to Soldier

**Ok there seems to have been a fair bit of interest in the story which is good, the only request i can make is for everyone to please leave a review, even if it is only a good job or structure needs to be improved, any comment is good as long as it is constructive.  
**

**Chapter two: From Child to Soldier**

**Still don't own Naruto  
**

As Iruka-Sensei rambled on about something that would no doubt have very little impact on him once he graduated, something about Madara Uchiha, Naruto's thoughts drifted to the oddity that was Mito Uzumaki. The girl was in the year below him in the academy, and its dead last much like his own classes Rock Lee. He snorted at that, despite being unable to use two thirds of the ninja arts Rock Lee was getting by on Taijutsu and academics alone, it was very impressive in fact, far more than most people were prepared to do. Naruto frowned with that thought, despite the fact that there were nearly thirty six students in his batch, there were only around ten that actually took things seriously, the others were here because they wanted to avoid doing any actual work at their parent's businesses or because they were fan girls. He repressed a shiver at that; you could say many things about Mito Uzumaki but a fan girl his neighbor was not, and for that he was eternally grateful to his neighbor.

His thoughts returned to Mito, admittedly her reason for becoming Hokage seemed utterly stupid, you needed to be acknowledged before you became Hokage, honestly and truly. But she had potential even a blind man could see that. Glancing over at the space next to him he saw that Yamatchi was asleep again. He chuckled at that, and then just as suddenly froze. If Yama was asleep, then that meant, "Naruto, tell me where Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju fought after Madara left Konoha!" Iruka yelled, managing the duel feat of scaring the shit out of Naruto and waking Yamatchi up.

"The valley of the End." Naruto replied after a moment's hesitation. Iruka frowned and returned to the lecture, he may not like it but he couldn't do anything about Naruto not paying attention. The academy put far too much stock in theory Naruto had decided and after attending the academy for two years he had already read all of the history of Konoha that was a part of the Syllabus, as well as all he could find in the village library about his homeland of the land of water. Knowledge was power and Naruto wanted to know how he could have ended up in Konoha in the first place and that meant research. He watched Rin Yamanaka out of the corner of his eye; the girl wasn't obsessed with either him or Neji and took her studies seriously a rarity in his class, only she and the girl with a thing for weapons, Tenten he thought her name was could claim that.

Naruto returned to staring out the window with that thought, waiting for the day to end, thinking about the other enigma in his class, the Rookie of the year, Neji Hyuga. Despite his odd behavior, he talked about fate way too much for it to be normal. He was a very capable Ninja, he had heard he was the best that the Hyuga had produced in years and clearly Neji had heard it too because he never shut up about how superior he was to everyone around him, in fact Naruto was the only one he even acknowledged in the class, it annoyed Naruto to no end. Hell he may not like the majority of his class mates but at least he replied when they talked to him. Still he had heard that the Uchiha was even worse, and even Mito didn't like the kid. With that thought the bell rang, signalling the end of the day's lessons and the student's began to file out of the class. Naruto and Yamatchi were the last ones out and just as Naruto began to head towards his apartment waving at his friend, he stopped when he heard said friend start to speak.

"Hey Naruto are you doing anything tonight?"

"Shopping, and then heading to my apartment why?"

"The clan's having a get together with the Yamanaka's and Akimichi, you wanna come?"

"I thought those things were reserved for your clans, why would you want me there?"

"Shikaku-Sama, said something about inviting you, not that I'm complaining I mean I'll have to entertain you which will be tiring, but when your clan head orders…"

"You follow, yeah I know. I'll be there I guess, can't see what he wants with an orphan like me."

"Probably has something to do with the fact that you're possibly the last member of what was once a very powerful clan in Kiri. Anyway come to the clan compound around six, Rin's going to be there if you need encouragement."

He smirked as he said the last part before walking in the opposite direction to where Naruto was going. Leaving Naruto frowning in his wake, he hadn't realised that Yama had picked up on that. He frowned; maybe he had picked up some of Kakashe-Nissan's habits without noticing, namely that of being a noticeable pervert. Setting off again before anyone else could accost him, he wondered how the Nara's had managed to work out where his clan name came from. More worrying was the fact that a clan head knew his name, you did not stay unnoticed if you had clan head's inviting you to parties and being unnoticed was something that Naruto very much desired as long as Orochimaru was running around. The last thing he needed was for that man to find out he was alive, half-forgotten memories arose from the recesses of his mind at that thought, images of a shadowed figure and the stench of the dead and the dying. He shivered; he was never going to return to that.

As he came around the corner, he came face to face with an unusual sight, Mito was walking through the crowd of parents that had come to collect their children from the academy, but the strange thing was the way everyone ignored her like she didn't exist. He frowned as he watched; it was strange behavior, all the more so because he couldn't see why they would act this way.

Mito continued walking, strangely subdued, despite the fact that her clothes screamed out for people to see her. It was Naruto thought, the first time he had seen her when he wasn't being her usual loud brash self. Suddenly seemingly more affected by the adult's actions than he had thought initially, she started to run into the commercial district proper. Naruto followed, he'd get to the bottom of this, it was just lucky that she was going in the same direction that he was.

* * *

When Naruto reached the main shopping area, he immediately looked around for Mito, but failing to find the orange clad girl, he turned and walked down a side street, heading to the Shinobi outfitters. Walking into a smithery, with all kinds of weapons covering the walls, from swords to those that he couldn't even name, he was surprised to see Tenten behind the counter. "You work here?" he asked evenly, somewhat surprised at this fact. Looking up at the noise her eyes widened slightly, before she replied "Yeah, it's my dad's shop, I help out sometimes."

Naruto nodded, it explained the weapon fetish. "Maybe you can help me then, I want a pair of bracers that will include partial cover of my hands as well as arms, they need to fit over gloves and be strong enough to have sealing array's drawn on them eventually. While we're at it could I grab a pair of black fingerless gloves as well?" Tenten nodded before replying,

"Yeah that's easy enough to handle," her eyes sparkled mischievously for a moment before replying, "You don't want any knives, shuriken or anything else sharp and pointy?"

"Um no I should be fine." Naruto managed to mutter weakly, wondering what the hell was wrong with the girl. Tenten nodded happily, before gathering up the items from behinds the counter and placing them in a bag, Naruto paid for them, the last of his monthly allowance was now gone, but it would be worth it eventually he was sure. Leaving the shop, waving absently behind him, he saw the other reason he had chosen to come into the district, Mito Uzumaki. The girl despite the fact that there had to be around thirty or forty people in the street, looked so alone. It was like she was a ghost in the village, it was so strange Naruto thought as the girl entered a Ramen restraint called Ichiraku. And he heard her loud voice and what he now realized was a persona to cover up the loneliness she must feel. Sighing Naruto turned and walked away, he had to go and get ready for this clan thing, the issues surrounding Mito and the bizarre relationship she had with the village of her birth temporarily forgotten in the face of what he had to deal with tonight.

* * *

Naruto arrived at the Nara clan compound slightly before six, looking around and seeing that the gate was open, he walked straight in hoping to Kami that Yama was around somewhere. He needn't have worried, for as soon as he was through the gate, he saw his best friend, waving halfheartedly, at him. Yamatchi Nara was something of an oddity within his clan, possessing their usual brilliance, although not to the same degree that others did, what was unusual was that he was far more energetic than most of his clansmen, and it was this more than anything else that set him apart from the majority of the Nara's. Still the laziness persisted, just in a much more minor form. Grinning in response Naruto walked towards him, just as Yama was walking towards Naruto himself. The two fist bumped before turning and walking towards the main building and where Naruto assumed that the Clan head was waiting for him.

"So what does he actually want with me?"

"Dunno all three of them are there, they seemed keen to meet you, I imagine they want to see if they can convince you to marry into one of the clans, a Kekkei Genkai would elevate any of them to the same level as the Uchiha or Senju once were and according to my cousin, the Uchiha's gay ." Naruto sniggered at that as the two boys made their way towards the room where three of the most celebrated of Konoha's heroes were waiting.

Naruto walked up to the door and pushed it, revealing a mostly bare room, the only ornamentation being a large banner with the Nara clan mark on it. Looking around he say the scar faced visage of Shikaku Nara with Inoichi Yamanaka and Choza Akimichi standing behind him. Naruto suddenly felt self-conscious, in the face of the three clan heads. He stood before them awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what he should be doing, finally in an attempt to break the silence that had developed he spoke,

"You wished to see me, Nara-Sama, Yamanaka-Sama, Akimichi-Sama?"They stood there for a time, looking at him with an unreadable expression on their faces before Shikaku spoke,

"We wished to meet the child who will one day be introducing a new clan to the village it is not so unusual is it?"

"Not that I'm aware of, it's more a case of wondering what I could have done to have been called before you all, I am at this point little more than a better than average Academy student. As it stands I was given to understand by the Hokage that who I am would be kept from the village for the most part, at least until I had graduated and could protect myself."

Choza and Shikaku nodded at that while Inoichi smiled, looking at the boy he said, "We fought many of your clansmen in the third war, pronominal Shinobi all of them you can take pride in that fact." Naruto nodded to show he understood, the tension in the room had dropped noticeably by this point and Naruto felt comfortable digging a little further.

"That can't be the only reason you invited me, there is more to it than simply wanting to meet me."

"You are correct, what you have to appreciate is the fact that you are for better or worse effectively a Konohan clan heir much like our own children, accordingly we felt it would be best if you at least met the people with whom you will be sharing duties with in the future." Choza finished speaking, and Naruto while he didn't show it he was impressed, the three of them seemed perfectly in sync with each other to the point where they were finishing each others conversations, well either that or they had it all worked out from the beginning, not that he wouldn't put it past them, the Ino-Shika-Cho were fairly well known for that sort of stuff, at least they had been during the war, he doubted that things had changed much in the years since.

"So you wish for me to meet your children?" at their nods, he smiled slightly, "I'm sure it will be a pleasure to do so," he continued "although I am slightly curious about how one of the clan heirs is treated, I don't suppose you could tell me why Mito Uzumaki is treated by the villages in such an odd fashion could you?" At that all three of them shifted uncomfortably and Shikaku looked the boy straight in the eyes and said, "Not many people know about the Uzumaki clan, how did you work out she was the heir?"

"I was curious about the swirl on the Jonin vests, there's a lot about the clan in the archive, probably because of the relationship they have to the Senju I guess, as far as being clan heir, Uzu was destroyed, she's the only recorded one and I doubt that they would have gone any ware else." They nodded accepting the answer before the black haired man continued "As for why she's treated that way, it's difficult to explain, suffice to say, she carries a burden that the village should be far more grateful for than they actually are."

Naruto nodded at this and then begged his leave, before heading towards where he had been directed to go to meet the heirs, leaving the three men alone in the room.

"I like him more than the Uchiha, if it came to it, it may be better to have him replace Sasuke, he's too damaged for active duty in many ways." Inoichi stated, the others nodded before Choza added

"Sharp too, to pick up on the way that Uzumaki's treated as well as the relation to the Senju, he's going to be a real force when he comes into his own you know." Shikaku nodded his head in agreement while Inoichi pressed his lips together,

"You don't think Ino will start thinking about him rather than the Uchiha?" he asked hopefully. The others laughed before leaving the room to enjoy the gathering between the clans.

* * *

Naruto walked back towards his apartment in the fading day light, things had gone well he thought, he had gotten on well enough with the Heirs that he felt he could work with them in the future if that was required and upon discovering that they were in the same class as Mito, he had been able to gather that she was treated by the teaching staff in much the same way that all of the older members of the village did.

It was strange and Naruto was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. Walking past the pseudo-training field, Naruto heard a soft thunk as something hit a tree, his curiosity raised, he walked towards the source of the sound, and saw the girl whom he'd been thinking about for much of the day, Mito throwing a pair of old Kunai at a stump.

Naruto stopped and watched as she threw the most basic of a ninja's tools, this continued for a time, Naruto watching and observing, it was strange but her style was full of flaws, flaws that should have been corrected by an academy instructor. "Why aren't you throwing left-handed?" Naruto's voice broke the silence that existed in the twilight, as Konoha slipped from the day into the night.

"Huh?"

Mito answered the question, clearly confused about what the older boy meant. Naruto walked towards his neighbor pulling his own Kunai out, "Ok so watch when I throw left handed it goes slightly off life this," he said and then threw the weapon; it flew with a slight dip before sinking into to the crudely painted target, just below the bull's-eye.

"But when I use my right hand which is my dominant hand," he continued letting fly with his dull black blade; it tore through the air and punctured the stump a good three or four inches. "You're not throwing it badly just not efficiently, see you need to loosen up your feet, rest on the balls rather than the toes like this and throw from your left hand, which is clearly your dominant hand," Naruto said showing the Girl how to do it properly. "This way you can put more force behind the throw; hold the Kunai looser as well, so it will fly true." Naruto spent the rest of the remaining day light correcting the minor flaws in the girls throwing.

Finally as they finished Naruto had to ask, "Why do you have such poor form, do you not pay attention or something?" Naruto was genuinely perplexed as to how so many flaws in her throwing could have persisted into a second year of the academy. "That's how the instructors told me to throw." She said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which to her it was, although she couldn't deny that Naruto had improved her throwing by a hundredfold in the half hour she had spent under his instruction compared to the year it had taken her to get competent with the way that they had shown her.

"Uhh huh, and I suppose that it's different from the way that all the other kids are taught?" "Yeah because I get sent out all the time and have to do make up lessons." Was the reply "Why do you get sent out?"

"I ask stupid questions." She said a bit despondently, although he caught undertones of something else, almost as if she was resigned to this unpleasant fact. Naruto looked at the girl feeling sorry for he he came to a decision.

"Ok what I want you to do is save the questions for latter and then ask me ok."

"YATTA! I'll be awesome in no time!"

she yelled out into the night, which Naruto took as a yes.

"Right in that case meet me here tomorrow and I'll figure out what else needs to be done." He said as he walked away. This is truly bizarre, he thought, why would someone actively sabotage a student's learning, Nara-Sama said that it was her burden that caused this treatment, 'I'm going to have to do some research and find out just what is going on.' Were his final thoughts as he climbed up the stairs, still confused but determined to work out what the hell was going on.

* * *

Months and eventually years went by and Mito slowly began to move up the class rankings, much to her instructor's ire, their careful attempts to sabotage the Blonde Jinchūriki's learning were foiled by Naruto, who in his free time began to delve even further into the Konoha archive to work out just what it was exactly that set Mito so far apart form her fellow students.

He dismissed the fact that maybe they felt guilty they had been unable to save the rest of Uzu from destruction as it had happened too long ago for such a grudge to still be held. Eventually he hid an impasse unable to move forwards because he simply lacked the information that he needed. That was at least until the day that Naruto was attempting to help Mito with her clone technique.

Naruto watch Mito as she concentrated and then with a poof of smoke three sickly clones appeared and then collapsed on the ground before disappearing, but it wasn't this that caught Naruto's attention, rather it was the sealing array that appeared on her belly, Mito having shed her jacket was wearing an Orange tank top, thus allowing what looked like a very complicated containment seal to be revealed to Naruto's eyes. Naruto looked at it and committed the seal to memory, resolving to go and look it up latter.

"Mito he called out try and make as many clones as you can, don't limit the chakra flow." He vaguely remembered hearing that without chakra control anyone with Jonin level chakra would find it impossible to make less than five hundred clones, he had suspicions that Mito may simply have to much Chakra to perform the exercise properly.

Mentally he started cataloging all of the chakra control exercises that he could think of, if his suspicions were true then Mito was going to need to put in a hell of a lot of work on Chakra control.

"Okay here it goes Naruto-Kun." Mito said as she made the hand signs for the basic technique, there was a poof of smoke and they were surrounded with nearly a thousand illusionary clones. "There you go," Naruto said smiling broadly, "the issue is you simply have way too much chakra to really use that technique properly, so try and get your chakra control down somehow, try a variation of the leaf exercise, and you should be sweet, I need to go and look some stuff up now, I'll catch you latter in any case."

With that Naruto got up of the stump he had been sitting at, the same on that was used for target practice and headed in the direction of the Konoha Archive; he had some things that he needed to look up.

* * *

Later that night Naruto sat at his desk/table, the lights still on despite the fact that he should have been in bed hours ago. Leafing through the scrolls he had picked up he finally found what he was looking for looking through it there was one sentence that stood out to all the others.

_Out of all the military forces that a major Hidden village can call upon possibly the most dangerous are it's Jinchūriki, the Human sacrifices are used to normally protect their villages or in some instances to outright destroy one as was the case with Uzushiogakure no Sato. For more information see Tailed beast._

Turning to another scroll, Naruto pulled it out, this one was called: _The subjection of the Tailed Beasts, _and he already had a bad feeling in his heart opening it up he looked for the relevant part and when he read it his heart sank.

_The Biju are not living creatures so much as they are masses of sentient Chakra, as a result most are impossible to destroy with the two exceptions being the one and two tails, coincidentally the two creatures that are composed of material other than raw chakra. The only ways of containing these destructive forces of nature are usually to seal them within something. However over time the idea of sealing them inside people has become popular, as of now, the practice of making Jinchūriki is becoming increasingly popular and it is only a matter of time before these become a key military possession of the newly forming Villages._

Already knowing what it would say Naruto turned to the other scroll that he had borrowed from the archive. _Lives of the Jinchūriki_ was not pleasant reading nor did it skirt around the truth, but at least Naruto knew why the village acted the way it did around Mito now. He gazed at the short and sharp statement that defined the lives of the Demon hosts who were expected to protect the very same people that cursed their existence.

_To be a Jinchūriki is to know the pain of hatred. The majority are never accepted and when they prove to be failures or they lapse in their control, as is seen in those who house the Hachibi or the Shukaku (although this is held to be the poor sealing practices of the sand village rather than any fault of the host itself). Perhaps the best that can be said is that most are related to the Kage and as a result can enjoy some measure of protection. Needless to say it is not a fate that should be wished on anyone. _

Naruto finished reading the passage and sighed, so that was it, he lived next door to a girl who shouldered a heavy burden and he got the impression that she had absolutely no idea. He sighed again, he would have to go and talk to the Hokage tomorrow, and maybe he could see if Kakashi-Niisan was around as well, he hadn't seen him in a while.

* * *

Naruto walked slowly towards the Hokage's tower, entering the building he noted that it had changed little from when was here last. Nodding to people as he walked past he noted that he was acknowledged in return, a courtesy that they did not seem to extent to his neighbour when she visited, he frowned, truthfully he found the whole arrangement disgusting, and condemning someone because they were most likely the closest child available was a truly cruel act.

He approached the Hokage's secretary and asked if he was available, when she nodded yes he knocked on the door before entering, seeing the Grandfatherly man reading, his chest tightened momentarily, an indication of just how angry he was.

"Ahh, Naruto-Kun, what can I do for today?" He asked a pleasant smile affixed to his face.

"I know Mito's secret," With those words the grandfather act was dropped and the ancient man became serious, he was Naruto thought in full Hokage mode.

"And what secret would that be?" The Hokage asked, gazing at Naruto with an expression that was anything but warm and inviting.

"The truth about how the fourth defeated the Kyuubi." At that his aged leader seemed to slump,

"Was it easy to find out?" he managed to ask, his posture having changed in an instance to that of an old man, weighed down with a job that he was too old to bear.

"No I had to do a hell of a lot of research and I was only put on that path because I saw the seal, I doubt anyone in our generation would be able to work it out, aside from maybe a well informed Hyuga." Naruto replied taking a seat, he knew this was going to be a long conversation.

"That eases my mind somewhat; I take it that you haven't told her?"

"No, I doubt she would appreciate it coming from me, you shouldn't have kept that from her, she has no idea why she's treated the way she is, what you've done is no kindness."

"I wanted to give her a chance at a normal childhood."

"For what it's worth, I can't fault you for that although I must say it's hardly been normal by any stretch of the imagination." The old Hokage nodded, "It is one of my greatest failings." Naruto nodded his head accepting the fact that the man was truly regretful.

"I have another request," Naruto began as the Hokage looked up with an unreadable expression on his face,

"Ohh and what would that be?" he asked, curious about what the boy could want.

"I'd like to know if it would be at all possible for me to obtain my clan scrolls, I imagine that they would still be in the clan quarters in Kiri, I doubt anyone's moved them, from what I hear, what were once the clan holds are deserted, I would like someone to go and retrieve them if at all possible." Sarutobi nodded it was a reasonable request and one that he had been expecting and he already had an idea about who to send.

"I believe that that can be arranged, Naruto-kun, I'm sure we can have them after you pass your Genin exam." Naruto nodded it was better than he had expected "Thank you, Hokage-Sama; I'll take my leave now." Hiruzen nodded and watched as the boy left his office, now he just needed to pay a visit to Danzo, who would no doubt jump at the opportunity to enhance the village's strength. Naruto emerged into the bright sunlight, blinking he headed towards Kakashi's apartment, he had several questions for the man, not lest was why he had been placed next door to the village's demon host. It was going to be an interesting afternoon.

* * *

Naruto sat in his usual seat waiting for his name to be called so that he could sit the test, he had no doubt he'd pass, he had completed the requirements years ago, Neji and Rock Lee were the only people who he couldn't beat in Taijutsu spars and the latter was only because Maito Gai had taken an interest in the boy, having a famed Taijutsu master tutor you certainly helped, he smiled wryly as he looked at Lee, he had never met Gai, but he sounded like a nice enough fellow.

"Yuki, Naruto."

Naruto stood and walked into the room, Iruka-Sensei sat behind a desk and smiling in a way that was clearly meant to put people at ease, "Ok Naruto can you show me the Bunshin technique, followed by the Henge and then the Kawarimi?"

Naruto nodded and forming the gesture, generated five illusionary clones, before henging into a copy of the Hokage, Iruka nodded before writing something down in his book before Naruto replaced himself with the log that was in the corner.

"Excellent Naruto, you are now a Shinobi of the leaf, choose a forehead protector and wear it proudly as you protect the village from its enemies."

Naruto looked over at the available colors and settled for an ice blue one, it was fitting he decided. His decision made he exited the room, thanking Iruka as he left, the protector clasped in his hands. He returned to his seat and hardly heard Iruka say that he would have to return in two weeks to get his team placement and meet his Jonin sensei. Naruto and his class mates stood and left the building, as he walked out Naruto smiled, for better or worse he was now a soldier of the Hokage and was prepared to give his life to protect the only home that he had ever known.

**More set up here, the action will start next chapter will the true test and a bit on the ROOT squad in Kiri, This is likely to be the last update for this month as I have exam's coming up and need to focus on them at this point. AS a result there will be an update around the fourth of November. Again if you see any error's let me know and i will endeavor to correct them. **

** Read and Review**

**Wolka.  
**


	3. Student of the White Eye?

**Chapter three: Student of the Great eye?**

**Again I don't own Naruto, if I did it would probably look like this and there would be a single Madara and he wouldn't be able to summon mutant Ents and he sure as hell wouldn't have the Rinnegan or wood release which it seems everybody has these days.**

**WARNING HAVE NOT BETA/ Proof read this much.  
**

Root operative Five moved down the darkened streets of Kirigakure no Sato, avoiding the guards, not that there were many. Nearly twelve years of civil war combined with the fact that bloodline clans made up the majority of the villages military forces had left it crippled, as it stood it would be barely able to fight off an invasion from two of the minor villages. Had Five been a curious individual he might have asked why Yagura was crippling his village, but Five was Root and to be Root meant you did not think about things unless they were essential to the mission.

As his four man team made their way to the abandoned clan district, long since abandoned as both the Yuki and Kaguya had left the village rather quickly once it became clear what the Mizukage's policies were regarding their clans, Five made a gesture and Three, the teams Genjutsu specialist layered a relatively complex illusion into place, first hiding them and then twisting the light entering those caught in the technique's eyes causing them to see the team ten meters from where they actually were. The soft sound of sandals hitting the wet ground alerted Five to the presence of sentries. Another gesture and another Genjutsu was in place, a variation of the Senju clan's famous **Kokuangyo no Jutsu** (**Bringer-of-Darkness Technique** )[i], limited to where the dark was already present, but very effective none the less. Quickly Six and Nine ran forward, grasping the enemy Nin's necks and twisting they fell to the ground with their victims, masking their fall, the only sound in the night a small clicking noise as their necks were broken. Hiding the bodies in a nearby alley the team continued forwards into the Yuki clan area. Danzo-sama had ordered them to retrieve any scrolls that could be found in the clan district; if they were successful, then they would be aiding the growth of a great tree would grow and flourish ready to protect the forest that was Konoha.

Moving into the district Five took note of the ancient dried blood stains and skeletons that were present, this meant that it was likely the scrolls were undisturbed, quickly making the hand signs he signaled to Six and Nine to find the library and secure the scrolls there while he and Three went from house to house collecting what they could find, after all it was not like the skeletons needed it.

It was dawn by the time they had completed their objective, it was clear that they would be unable to investigate the other abandoned districts before discovery so they quietly made their way out of the village, It was Five reflected as he and his team began to head towards the boat that would take them back to the Land of Fire, a very good thing for the mission that most of the villages elite were with the rebels being bloodline users themselves or dead, it was unlikely they would have been able to succeed if the Bloody Mist was functioning as effectively as it had been in Zabuza Momochi 's day.

Two days later the team were at sea, heading back to Konoha, the mission a success.

* * *

Naruto woke to the sound of his alarm screaming, reading out he punched it, repeatedly. The offending noise gone he lay there for a moment, savoring the feeling of just lying there. Eventually groaning he threw the covers off and leaving them hanging haphazardly on the mattress he padded to the kitchen to make breakfast. Thirty minutes later he could be found standing at the door, dressed in dark Grey ANBU pants, a pale grey shirt with a mesh shirt underneath it and white armbands decorating his upper torso and the standard Shinobi sandals. His new Konoha Hitai-ate tied around his right arm. Judging himself satisfactory he pushed open the door and made his way towards the Academy, musing on the last two weeks. After being lazy for a couple of days, he had taken advantage of being able to access the Shinobi resources and taken out a couple of scrolls on elemental Jutsu, his were unsurprisingly wind and water, Tenten had been impressed until he explained the nature of his Kekkei Genkai. Walking towards the building and entering it Naruto wasn't surprised when he found himself the first one there, taking his usual seat he lay down and closed his eyes, drifting off to dreams of battles that he had no name for, had he described them to someone with the knowledge, they would have told him that they were most of the major battles that Kiri had taken part in during the second great war, however he did not and that mystery would continue for a while yet.

Naruto woke to hear the students talking excitedly about what was going to happen to them now that they were proper ninja, glancing over he saw that Yama was, much like he had been, asleep. Knowing that there was no chance of a return to his dreams, disturbing as they were, he looked up just as Iruka walked in; everyone continued talking ignoring the scar faced Chunin. Finally having had enough Iruka yelled out "Sit down and shut up!" Naruto dutifully sat down and shut up, it wouldn't do to antagonize the man now that he was so close to getting out and repaying his debt to the Sandaime.

"Right, now you've all passed and I expect you to go on and work hard and prove yourselves to be a service to not only the leaf and your family but myself also." Naruto stopped paying attention after that zoning in when he heard Naruto Yuki, Yamatchi Nara and Rin Yamanaka under Jonin Hanuba Hyuga will be team eleven." Naruto smiled at that, the team its self wasn't unusual the choice of a Hyuga was however, they rarely chose to take teams preferring to train their fellow clan members. Naruto lost his smile at that, it was unusual and would need further consideration, Iruka continued talking saying something about meeting after lunch, wordlessly he rose, Yama following walking past he murmured "We might as well eat together." Nodding her head Rin followed the two boys out and into the exercise yard towards the target range where they had taken to sitting. Looking at his team, Naruto nodded, they would succeed he knew, and with them he could finally repay the leaf for its kindness.

They sat there quietly, none of them sure what to say, Naruto and Yama had had little experience with quiet girls, the Nara women being famous for yelling at the men to motivate them and the only girls that Naruto had really had much to do with were Tenten, Mito and Ino, none of whom would fit into the quiet category. So they sat there rather awkwardly until Yamatchi broke the silence, "A Hyuga's kind of unusual isn't it? I mean usually they stick to training their own don't they?" Rin nodded at that, looking confused, while Naruto said, "who cares? I just hope he doesn't have a stick up his arse." The others nodded at that and with the atmosphere a lot less awkward than it had been, and the rest of the break was spent getting to know Rin, Naruto having had little to do with the girl beyond staring at her in class sometimes. The time passed rapidly after that and soon the students began to file through back into the class.

* * *

Upon entering the class they were greeted by the sight of a Hyuga wearing ANBU style body amour standing next to a man with the thickest eyebrows that Naruto had ever seen, this was accompanied by a hideous green spandex jumpsuit, "YOSH!" The man yelled suddenly as the majority of the students had entered the class by that point, "Will the youthful team nine come with myself, Konoha's sublime green beast of prey, Maito Guy to learn the ways of YOUTH!" before dashing out the door. Naruto didn't like the way that Lee's eyes were shining, but said goodbye and gave Tenten a smile and nodded to Neji as he made his way out, the older Hyuga nodded as the prodigy moved past, Naruto heard a murmured "Neji-san" before turning to the class, "Team eleven follow me." Before turning and walking out the door, Naruto followed the guy assuming that he was their sensei outside and towards the swing where he sat before gesturing for his students to sit down on the grass before him.

"Greetings, " He began "I am Hanuba Hyuga, I am a member of the Hyuga clan which means I focus primarily on Taijutsu although over the course of my career I have picked up a number of techniques that the more traditional members of my clan chose not to take advantage of. Should I find you satisfactory, you will be the sixth team of Genin I have trained, as a result I have a well-developed method for training you, should I chose to train you we will follow this method without deviating from it understood?" All three nodded their heads before Rin raised he hand, nodding to the girl and gesturing for her to proceed, she asked

"Um Sensei, what do you mean you may train us? We passed didn't we?" The Hyuga nodded and then said,

"I will tell you more about that later, for now we will introduce ourselves to one another, while you may be familiar with one another I am not and you all know nothing about me, so I will begin. I am Hanuba Hyuga, I enjoy training the next generation of leaf Shinobi and time spent away from my clan members." The Genin frowned at that, it was a weird thing to say you enjoyed. "My dislikes include some of the traditional practices of my clan and those who refuse to develop a skill because it hasn't been done before. My hobbies are spending time with my students past and present and my dream is to see you pass out from my care as capable Chunin. You're next." He said pointing at Naruto who was sitting on the left.

"My name's Naruto Yuki, my likes include training and learning new Jutsu. Dislikes, questions I can't answer I suppose and mysteries, ohh and people who don't take Shinobi life seriously. My hobbies are spending time with my friends and reading. My dream for the future is to prove myself to be an asset to Konoha and repay the Sandaime's trust in me." He finished with a small smile breaking through the icy demeanour he usually wore, Hanuba nodded, it matched up with his profile. Pointing to the girl, he waited for her to begin to speak.

"Umm right, I'm Rin Yamanaka," the auburn haired girl began, "I like spending time with my family and working in one of the clan flower shops. I dislike those who look down on others and my dream is to become an academy instructor and find out what happened to my brother Fu." _Thank Kami she's not a fan girl_ were Hanuba's thoughts as he turned to the last of his potential team.

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm Yamatchi Nara; I like Shogi I suppose and sleeping. I don't really dislike anything, my hobbies are hanging out with my cousin Shikamaru his friend Choji and Naruto as well as cloud watching. My dream is to become head carer for the clan deer. At that Naruto and Rin sweat dropped and and Hanuba stared at him intently

"Right," Hanuba said trying to process the fact that the kid who was supposedly the most ambitious Nara they had had in years wanted to look after a bunch of deer for the rest of his life. "What happens now is we all go home and come back tomorrow to training ground eleven, there we will participate in an exercise to see whether you are worthy to become leaf Shinobi, should you pass I will train you, if you fail, you will be sent back to the academy. Be there at eight, any later and I will fail you good day." And with that he got up and walked off.

Naruto was still trying to process what the hell was going on when he heard Rin ask; So do you guys want to do something now, we've got ages to do something?"

"Yeah, might as well, we can try and work out what will happen tomorrow."

"We can go to my apartment if you like?" Naruto contributed and at the others nod he began to lead the way back to his home.

* * *

As luck would have it they ran into Mito as they approached the mostly deserted building, both his team mates were shocked to think that the place was empty, even Yama despite having been at his place countless times. Rin seemed shocked at meeting Mito, something that Naruto was going to hit her up about once they got inside. Bidding his Neighbor goodnight, the three preteens made their way inside and Naruto began to prepare some food. Once that was done and they were sitting at Naruto's table/ desk, Rin looked around at the scrolls that covered the room, many of them crinkled with age, "You weren't kidding when you said you liked to read were you?" she asked teasingly and was startled when he saw the haunted look in Naruto's eyes, "I hate not knowing something, I don't know how I ended up in Konoha, or who my parents are," Rin nodded, that was common knowledge among the village. "But I hate not knowing, and I guess that just kind of passed on to other things, you know? If there's a secret I want to know it and know everything about something that catches my interest." Rin nodded again in understanding.

"You don't like Mito." It wasn't a question, as she looked up she saw slate grey eyes boring into her very being. "My mum said to stay away from her, that she was dangerous."

"Does she look dangerous?" he asked surprised a girl who had seemed reasonably intelligent would buy something like that, Rin herself looked a bit uncomfortable at that, seeming to realize, that the girl did not look dangerous in the slightest.

"No." she managed to get out, somewhat unnerved by the intense stare her teammate was giving her, Yamatchi she noticed out of the corner of her eye seemed to be ignoring the conversation and was reading one of the scrolls that populated the apartment although if you focused you would have seen that he was focused entirely on the convocation.

"She was chosen for a role she had no choice in." Naruto began and by this point neither of them were making any attempt to hide their interest in the matter, "And as a result she is hated for it, people forget it could have just as easily been one of the other kids her age, hell it could have been anyone within five years of her age."

"What was she chosen for?" Yamatchi broke the silence that had developed after Naruto's last statement. However the boy shook his head, "It's not my place to tell." The boy finished with an air of finality, and both knew that they would be getting nothing more from him on the matter. "Anyway, you guys had better head back if we're going to be up at eight tomorrow, I'll catch you later." he said as they made their way to the door, they both said goodbye before heading off in the direction of their clan compounds, leaving their thoughts about the mysterious blonde girl that everyone hated behind.

* * *

Danzo looked at the scrolls that his operatives had managed to retrieve, there were around sixty which to be honest he was surprised about although he imagined some would be limited to certain situations and others would be Taijutsu or Genjutsu still, looking at one of the ones covering Wind Jutsu, he attempted to open it, but found it held tight. He wasn't surprised that no one who wasn't a clan member could open it, in truth he had little interest in the way that Yuki clansmen typically fought, and he doubted that any of the Jutsu would match his style and unless you counted young Yuki himself there were only two wind users in the village. Sighing he sealed them back up, he would give them to Sarutobi in the morning to gift to the Yuki boy if he passed his sensei's test, it mattered little, from what he had seen, the boy had the right attitude about being a Shinobi, and his relationship with the Jinchūriki meant that she was less likely to run, thus ensuring that the main deterrent from Kumo unleashing the Hachibi on the village would remain.

Sighing again he moved to where the squads reports about the state of the land of water were, looking at them he frowned inwardly, it made no sense to cripple a village like that, but neither the less, it meant that they could offer support to the bloodline rebels and hopefully have a better relationship with Kiri at the end of it, the Suna alliance was nearing its end, and there was nothing to prevent them turning on it, particularly with most of the land of wind's missions going to Konoha.

Groaning Danzo decided to worry about it in the morning after the meeting with Hiruzen, the things he did for his village.

* * *

Naruto woke from another bizarre not-quite-a-dream with a start, looking at the slightly pulverised alarm clock next to his bed; he dragged himself out of bed and hit the shower. Emerging ten minutes later he grabbed some food and quickly made it down the complex, jumping floors to avoid the stairs, _the perks of being a ninja _he thought as the ground rapidly approached. A dull thump echoed through the early morning air as his sandals absorbed the brunt of his fall before he sprinted off arriving at the training grounds before his team mates he glanced around, not surprisingly Hanuba was already there, "You are very prompt today." The Jonin stated, Naruto didn't bother to reply, content to let a flash of irritation flash across his face, knowing that the man had his eyes active.

Shortly before the cut off Yamatchi and Rin arrived, the former looking slightly out of breath, Naruto smirked upon seeing that, _serves the bastard right for not bothering with physical training_ he thought vindictively. "You are all here." The not quite so stuck up Hyuga stated at the Genin, Naruto frowned at him, all his previous interaction with the Clan had come from the short interactions he had with Neji and the occasional glances he had gotten of the girl in Mito's class, both had offered two competing versions of what a Hyuga was. One was the 'prodigy' of his year, a title that should have really been reserved for a real prodigy rather than the kid who managed to take the title of Rookie of the Year, hell he thought acidly, _none of them for the last three years can hold a light to Itachi Uchiha and that includes that stuck up ponce Sasuke_. The other seemed like she was afraid of her own shadow, he had no idea what the hell motivated her to become a Shinobi, some misplaced desire to impress someone he guessed, he had noticed she spent a lot of time following Mito around, something that annoyed the boy to no end. Mito more than anything had needed a friend, at least until had had made an appearance in the girl's life, not a girl who fangasimed over an aspect of a manufactured personality that was nowhere close to the 'true' Mito Uzumaki's. _A thousand faces, hidden behind a thousand masks with that one, and a deeper secret than her burden no doubt. _Naruto found himself nodding along to the voice, and then frowned, normal people didn't hear voices in their heads, even if it could turn a pretty phrase, then again 'normal' people didn't dream of battles in far off lands either. Casually he wondered if the term 'normal' could be applied to any ninja, the personalities they developed if nothing else made them unique.

Unaware of the internal monologue going through the team red head, Hanuba studied them intently, it was clear they were familiar with each other and unlike Kakashi he wasn't waiting until he could recreate his old team, he had made his peace with his demons long ago. Coming to a decision, the he made a hand sign and a clone popped into being. This is a **Kage Bunshin,****[ii]**You are to defeat it, should you do so I will take you on as students, should you fail, then you are not worth my time, you have until lunchtime, he wondered about attempting to drive a wedge between them but decided there was no point, Naruto would be well aware about the way that Konoha teams were made up and any ruse he could pull would be unlikely to fool the Nara for long, the girl would also likely seek allies being a support type she was unsuited for going against someone like Hanuba. "You have two hours." He said and then his students were gone, in two different directions he noted with amusement, he went to sit down and observe the Genin.

Naruto had hidden himself away in the leafy undergrowth that surrounded training ground eleven and mentally went through what he had available to him, moderate skills in throwing weapons were unlikely to be much of an asset, nor was the Academy's very basic Taijutsu style going to be able to compete with something like the Juken, neither were the academy three going to be much help, especially if he didn't have the resources to compete with the pale eyed man. Then there was That. Scowling he knew that that, while effective would not last for long, he needed to work with the others, the Jonin had said nothing about working individually he realised, coming to a decision he cycled around the clone, while he knew that the clone could see him and the clone knew that he knew, it seemed he was free to move around, at least until he confronted the clone.

Several hundred meters away, a sight that was for the most part just as much a symbol of Konoha as the Wood release could be seen. A Nara and a Yamatchi sat crouched down, trying to work out what the hell they were going to do to beat the clone in front of them. Unsurprisingly it was Rin who was the first to speak, "We need to work together to do this,"

"Naturally," the boy next to her drawled absently poking the bush with a stick he had found.

"When do we make a move then?"

"When Naruto arrives."

"You seem convinced that he will come?" she questioned, it wasn't surprising considering they came from clans who were famous for their teamwork, whereas Naruto was an orphan, a smart orphan but an orphan none the less.

"He will analyze the situation and draw a satisfactory conclusion, he will come shortly."

"You seem convinced of this?" Rin questioned the black haired boy, still somewhat suspicious about how he could know so much about the red-heads personality that he could make an assumption like that.

"I'm hurt you don't think I wouldn't know my best friend's personality." That threw her. She had known the two were close; a classroom bond that had been forged by similar personalities and hardened in the aftermath of that clan gathering the Nara's had hosted in which Naruto had made an appearance. Clearly the Clan Heirs weren't the only ones that the grey eyed enigma had been spending more time with in the months afterwards. It was clear she had misread the relationship and the team dynamics would be very different to what she had mentally prepared for.

"It would be pointless to engage him individually." A new voice interrupted her train of thoughts and she saw the boy himself emerge from the tree line, "As it stands none of us can stand up to a Jonin and I lack the Jutsu to serve as a heavy hitter at this point, one of you will have to take him out, your family basics would likely demonstrate enough to pass us." Yama nodded, his mind working overtime to process the situation and take into account their respective skills, they really only had one option, and that was to use Naruto as a distraction and hit the clone with the other two's family techniques.

"Naruto," the back haired boy began, "Do you have anything to hold him off, while distracting him?"

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, I can pull that off, you guys will have to hope he focuses on me though, those eyes are serious business." Yama nodded while Rin watch the two operate, it was uncanny how the plan was formulating between them as they bounced ideas off each other. Suddenly she realised that a decision had been made as Naruto dashed off and Yamatchi gestured for her to follow him, before he began to edge around the clearing, completely lost on what they were doing and inwardly berating herself for not paying attention she followed.

* * *

Naruto needed to provide a distraction and he knew it, the problem was he was going to have to demonstrate the only Jutsu he had managed to learn over the break was going to demand a high price in the form of chakra, he estimated that he could get around six off, ten if he really pushed it, not for the last time he wished there was some water around to work with, he was going to have to do something about this if it was going to be a regular occurrence. Rushing towards the clone, he saw it looking at him impassively, the barest hint of disdain on its face, Naruto smirked, it wouldn't know what hit it in a second, _Dragon, Tiger, Hare, here we go_ he thought as he felt the chakra within him change, being molded by the hand seals," Suiton: Mizurappa!" (Water release: Violent Water Wave)[iii]. He cried out and water spewed out his mouth, tearing through the air toward s the clone who jumped back avoiding the barrage of water. Naruto stood there for a second, shocked at how much Chakra the Jutsu had taken, _Shit, I may have to re-evaluate, I can't keep this up forever._ He thought, wincing slightly at the drain on his reserves. Jumping back he repeated the process, each time feeling the drain, but it was a small price to pay to keep the Taijutsu specialist from closing with him. Naruto managed to get another three water waves off, but they were weakening, and he knew he didn't have much left; _Yama and Rin are going to have to do something soon. _He thought before he saw the clone jump forward, Naruto attempted to move back but the shadow clone was too fast, Naruto was desperately trying to think of a way to deal with this, resorting to backing up as far as he could, he could only wait for his team mates.

"What the hell are you waiting for? He's getting slaughtered out there!" Rin demanded as Yama crouched on the ground waiting for something, she had no idea what though.

"Shush!" he curtly demanded, watching his friend being hopelessly outmatched by the veteran, "Just a little more, come on," He said before holding his hands in the Rat seal his shadow streaked out, quickly merging with those cast by the bushes, which Rin now saw, both Naruto and Hanuba's shadow clone were now stuck, unable to move. "**Kagemane no Jutsu" (Shadow Imitation Technique)****[iv]**, she heard him mutter under his breath, seizing her chance, Rin made the seal and whispered "**Shintenshin no Jutsu"** (**Mind Body Switch Technique**)[v], and with that her Jutsu shot off, seizing the clones body for her own. Quickly she punched her body and it disappeared with a puff of smoke, she returned to her own body a moment later, grimacing, Yamatchi looked at her, and asked "what's wrong with you?"

"That technique," she managed to get out "was clearly never meant for those clones." Then she lent out to the side and promptly vomited, causing her partner to screw his face up in disgust, before standing up and pulling her to her feet. Stumbling over, he managed to pull a clearly exhausted Naruto up as well and all three walked towards the real Hyuga who was watching on impassively.

"Good, you all passed, and I admit I am impressed, it was a well thought out plan, it would not have worked if this was a real combat situation but it met the parameters for the exercise well enough. Now," he said turning to the twelve year old's who were grinning at each other with stupid grins on their faces. "I will take you on as a team, what this means is that I will have you for at least a year, in that time we will develop on what you learnt at the academy, beginning with creating a new Taijutsu style for the boys, Rin you will be working on Kenjutsu, at the moment Naruto lacks the reserves and Jutsu to serve as the heavy hitter, and so you and Yamatchi will need to be far more rounded than what your clan members usually are. Should you show that you have progressed to a sufficient level I will enter you in the Chunin exams when they return here next year, it would be foolish to travel to the mist at the moment and Iwa would be a death sentence, even had I wanted to enter you early." He breathed deeply and turned to the students, his face even grimmer than usual.

"You have chosen to be a Shinobi of this village, you all have an association with a Jonin so you are aware of what this life entails, you are now soldiers, which means that you will bleed for this village and should Hokage-sama, demand it, die for the village. Your allies one day may be your enemies the next, there is nothing certain in this world, and even less for a ninja. When you are proficient we will go and find some bandits for you to kill, it is something which will serve you in good stead for this career and the sooner it is done the easier your lives will be." Looking at them again, he paused and a pregnant silence filled the training ground, before he began to speak again: "Be here at eight for training, Naruto the Hokage wants to see you as well, he has a gift for you." Naruto nodded, already suspecting what it was while the other two looked confused, Yama wondered what the gift was, while Rin was wondering just what the relationship between the orphan and the village's military dictator was.

"In that case you are dismissed, do not be late." Their sensei said before he stood and began walking back to town, Naruto following soon after, still winded from the battle, saying farewell to his teammates, before they too stood up and left heading towards their respective clan compounds, each lost in their own thoughts, Yama wondering just what he had gotten himself into while Rin thought of a red headed boy with hooded grey eyes that betrayed nothing. The Training ground was left behind them, silent and empty, an unwitting reminder that today the three of them had left behind the childhood's they had once had, there was no going back at this point.

* * *

[i] Genjustu A rank

Exerts a hallucinatory effect upon the eyesight, effectively blinding the opponent. However does not stop other senses.

[ii] Do I really need to explain it?

[iii] A basic C rank water technique it is easily modified into various forms, one of the most adaptable of the water Jutsu.

[iv] Allows the user to extend their shadow to trap targets within it, hindering their movement, one of the hidden Nara Jutsu.

[v] Signature clan Jutsu allows the user to send their mind into the target, taking control of their body, the original body is left defenceless however and the Jutsu is very slow moving.

* * *

**And that is the introductory arc over with. Again please give me your thoughts on the fic, updates will begin to speed up as my exams are coming to a close, In Particular can people tell me about the fight scenes, i need to know if what i did works. **

**R&R**

**cheers**


	4. The Cold Face of Reality

**The Cold Face of Reality**

* * *

**Cheers to Tristan76 for giving me the idea about the tenketsu points, anyway enjoy. I kind of rushed this as I want to get to cannon as soon as I can so expect some time-skips over the next few chapters.  
**

* * *

Naruto sat at his desk in his apartment, looking at the scrolls that were all he had left of his clan. He paused and looked at the single sealing scroll that he had been given. "Showtime I guess." He said to the empty room, the words breaking the hushed silence that seemed to have developed in the wake of returning from the Hokage's offices with this awesome gift. Unsealing the scroll he gasped as he quickly read the chart that documented what was contained within the scroll. Slightly dazed at the amount of knowledge that was contained within his hands he opened the first one which he assumed would detail what was contained, quickly reading it, Naruto quickly worked out what the purpose of the Jutsu scrolls were. The Suiton was mainly concerned with generating water molecules to work with, as well as slowing down opponents by manipulating the surrounding area and causing damage via blunt force. The Futon he was surprised to see was not really focused on causing damage but rather on speeding up the Hyoton techniques and was used to manipulate the ice's shape. Finally the Hyoton itself was used in a number of ways from obscuring vision to being used as a basis to make ninja tools, at that he smiled no more buying shuriken! Other than that it was mainly used to create solid objects that were used to cause damage. Naruto smiled when he had finished reading the basic guide to the clan techniques, he would be able to go far with these.

**XXX**

The sound of flesh hitting metal echoed in the relatively silent Konoha morning air. Suppressing a groan, Naruto once again thanked his past self for having the foresight to buy the bracers that had come in handy so many times over the last two weeks. Twisting he lashed out with his own kick, catching Yamatchi off-guard and he smirked at the satisfying THUNK that signified a hit. Glancing over to where Rin and their sensei were. He saw Rin, with her Tanto swinging; pressing whatever advantage she had attempting to prevent Juken from being utilized. Turning back to his own fight, Naruto was rewarded for his inattention by taking a fist to his face. Spluttering he fell back just as Hanuba called time for their respective spars. Groaning he accepted Yamatchi's offer of a hand up and as he rose to his feet, Hanuba said, "Good work, you're all improving, Now Rin and Yamatchi go and practice tree climbing to build your reserves so you can last longer, while Naruto you need to focus on widening your tenketsu." Looking at his red headed charge, the Hyuga nodded before continuing, "The best thing to do would be to meditate and expel Chakra from your tenketsu points, you have the reserves it's getting your body to the point where it can utilize them that's the issue." The three Genin nodded before they set about their respective tasks, all three absolute faith in their teacher's methods.

Naruto sat on the ground of training field eleven, and closed his eyes. Concentrating he felt for the familiar cold feeling within his body that signified his Chakra reserves, He had large reserves for his age, something of an anomaly considering his control, the Hokage suspected that Orochimaru had made a number of 'upgrades' to Naruto prior to the Snake Sannin's departure from the village of his birth. However, due to the fact that none of the Chakra techniques used at the academy required utilizing large amounts of chakra, Naruto's Chakra system had not developed to the point where he could access all of the chakra that he had locked away. He concentrated and then felt the rush as he felt the Chakra circulating his system, and the strange feeling of it flowing out of his via the Tenketsu points in his body.

It was around half an hour later that an idea occurred to Naruto, Because of the nature of his Kekkei Genkai, manipulating elemental chakra came naturally to him and as a result he would never need to complete exercises such as the leaf cutting or leaf soaking. Wondering if he could expel the Hyoton chakra from his body, Naruto concentrated and felt as the chakra became colder and harder, the flow became more sluggish and opening his eyes, he gasped when he saw the grass around him freeze. Running a hand over the ground he watched as ice began to form wherever his hand moved.

"I was wondering if you would think of that." Hanuba said. Naruto hadn't realised that his sensei was so close and stopped what he was doing before he turned back to his teacher and asked the question that had come to his mind when he attempted to think of a practical application for his discovery.

"Sensei," he began, "Could I use this and add it to my Taijutsu?" a questioning quality that was not usually there was the only thing that suggested the importance of the question and Hanuba paused before answering.

"Yes, the current Raikage does something similar with the Raiton element, you would have to experiment to see what it could do, but I would guess that if you pumped enough out, you could freeze limbs in some cases. It would work well with the style you are developing as well, grabs that freeze the part of the body that it's holding would be most effective I believe." He finished with a smile, Naruto smiled back and after thanking the pupil less man set about thinking how this new discovery could be incorporated into his fighting style effectively.

At midday, they stopped what they were doing and sat together for lunch, something that had become a tradition, before traveling to the Hokage's offices and claiming a D rank mission. Naruto hated the D ranks with a passion, they never made him feel as though he had accomplished anything, and although he had never said anything, he couldn't wait until they got a harder mission. Although it was unvoiced he knew the others felt the same way, and Hanuba knew, even if he had yet to do anything about it. Unwrapping his sandwich he looked at his teammates. Although he hadn't known her well before hand, he knew that Rin was excelling in the use of the Tanto and was being groomed to become their Kenjutsu specialist. However that was nothing compared to the changes in Yamatchi, once the boy had acted much like his uncle, lazy but focused when he needed to be. Now he trained like a man possessed, if Naruto had to guess, he assumed it would be because he finally had a teacher who kept pushing at him until he accomplished what he wanted him to, nether the less, the new work ethic combined with his already brilliant mind made a dangerous combination, his friends growing prowess at Taijutsu just an example.

Then there was himself. Naruto knew he had made huge strides in his learning, a large part from the scrolls, the Jutsu coming much easier than they did when they came from elsewhere. It was strange but the fact that he now had a couple of fairly decent Genjutsu and some more water as well as one or two Hyoton meant that Naruto was quickly establishing himself as the Ninjutsu and assault specialist on the team to Rin's more specialized role and Yama's preference to stay back and provide support unless he really needed to intervene. Yes Naruto decided he was growing at a remarkable rate under Hanuba-sensei.

Chewing absently he never noticed the eyes of his sensei as they watched the boy who was quickly becoming his favorite student. Naruto's development was phenomenal and although he needed relatively little from him as a teacher most of his learning coming from his clan scrolls; he was pleased when he could help like he did today. He was content that the boy would stay in the leaf as well, he had nothing but intense hate for Orochimaru and Kiri was hardly a place that was suited to people of his ancestry, no Hanuba Hyuga was sure that this team may become his greatest contribution to the hidden leaf. Breaking out of his thoughts and checking the time he was somewhat surprised to see that it was time to go and get a mission from the Hokage, he was well aware that his students were getting inpatient with the missions, but they built up teamwork skills and he wanted to wait awhile until he took his students out to kill for the first time, they deserved some last opportunity to enjoy their innocence. Rising he made a gesture and his students fell in behind him, out of habit rather than anything else, the walk to the Hokage tower was something that they had gotten very good at over the last couple of weeks.

**XXX**

Hiruzen Sarutobi was an old man, and had been Hokage for most of his life, as a result he had seen countless Genin teams arrive and he had issued hundreds if not thousands of missions to said teams. Still he made a point to speak with them all at some point, if only to ensure that the Will of Fire was passing into the next generation. Smiling at the children who stood before him, two showing the immense respect that had could claim from his villagers and one not so much although it was still there, the fact that it wasn't obvious possibly owing more to the fact that that individual had had more to do with him than any other child in Konoha, with the exception of two others. Smiling broadly he looked at that one, and said in a dry tone "Here's a good mission, Capture Tora the cat." He had to suppress a chuckle as the young girl let out a groan and the Nara tensed, Naruto didn't let anything show, although if you were looking at him intently you would have seen the narrowing of his eyes. But it was gone as soon as it appeared and did little other than make Hiruzen smile. Turning around Naruto stalked out of the room, his team mates following, leaving a smiling Hanuba alone with the aged dictator of the village.

"They seem to be doing well." Hiruzen stated, eager to gather some information on the red headed boy.

"Yes, they're all doing very well, admittedly, Naruto needs to learn some more advanced Genjutsu to cover up the more obvious weaknesses in the team, but their teamwork is great, if only because the other two accept that Naruto's the leader."

"There was no conflict over that at all?" Hiruzen asked, such a concept somewhat alien to him as his team and all the students who had studied under that line were famous for the fact that there were always two who fought over who would 'lead' among the children.

"No," Hanuba said with a smile, "Rin's not a confrontational person at all, Yamatchi's happy guarding his back and Naruto accepts the position because he believes that it makes him a useful tool for the village." The smile slipped at the last part and was replaced with a frown, Hiruzen too was frowning.

"You need to address that with him, he needs to see himself as someone of value not a tool to be thrown away."

"You do know that it's partly your fault he thinks like that?" Hanuba stated, his eyes looking into the Hokage's own.

"How?" Hiruzen spluttered, confused as to how he was the cause of such an attitude.

"You rescue the boy from a terrible life as a living experiment and then when he attempts to thank you, you say that he should thank Konoha and that you were only acting as an extension of the village." Hanuba started and upon seeing his leaders nod he continued, "As a result he begins to feel that he owes the people who saved him, you claim it is the village who saved him, so he comes to believe that the best way to serve the village is to become a tool for its survival, it's a simple line of reasoning if you work along the philosophy he's following."

"I see." Hiruzen said with a sigh, that wasn't what he had wanted the boy to take away from that conversation, and now he had a child who saw himself as having little value, when in fact he was in all likelihood the most important of this year's Genin, the others were if he was brutally honest replaceable, a boy carrying an almost extinct Kekkei Genkai was the complete opposite however.

"See what you can do to convince him otherwise, there's not much we can do, the best thing that can be hoped for is he will find someone who can convince him to believe that he has some value, no amount of us arguing that fact will work, he needs emotional ties to this side of the grave. Leave it for now, we'll have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of years." Hanuba nodded and with a salute he disappeared after his Genin, the Hokage who was regarded as the most capable Nin in his prime could only sit at his desk and think '_Kami what a mess.'_

**XXX**

Naruto hated cats, it was a recent discover y but one which he had quickly come to with the aid of Tora. Currently he and his team were stalking the demon through the thick forests that were the Shodai's gift to the village he had created along with the Uchiha patriarch Madara. Cursing the fact that he couldn't use Jutsu on the cat, he would have happily turned it into a Popsicle at this point, Naruto crept forward, seeing the target he whispered into his headset, "Maelstrom in position." There was a pause and then he heard, "Shadow in position." Quickly followed by Rin who muttered

"Pig here, I'm in position." There was silence once again until their sensei finally said,

"Pale in position, mission is a go."

Naruto rushed forward, and Tora startled ran directly away from him, right into Yama's waiting hands while Rin stood nearby ready to act should the cat escape. Securing the animal, Naruto and his companions made ready to return to the village, it had taken them nearly three hours to track down the blasted animal and there was no point bothering with another mission at this point, no doubt they would begin practice with some of the Jutsu that Hanuba wanted the others to learn, Naruto had an exemption of sorts as the Clan scrolls they had would prepare him in a way that played to his bodies strengths rather than spending time trying to develop a style on his own. It was one of the benefits of coming from a clan which focused on the individual rather than the collective like the Nara and Yamanaka, after all until this year the thinking had been, if you have a pig a deer and a butterfly, then there shouldn't be anything they can't deal with, that thinking persisted even now and Naruto personally believed it would continue until his own team could prove otherwise, '_Konoha's problem,'_ he decided as they walked towards the Hokage tower, '_is that they believe if it isn't broke then don't fix it. The problem is though people learn what to expect.'_ It was ridiculous; there was even a scroll in his possession that detailed how a single Yuki could take out an Ino-Shika-Cho trio with minimal effort. Arriving back at the Hokage tower, Naruto just went through the motions accepting his pay check without looking at it, as well as deriving a vague sense of satisfaction from the cat that looked to be suffocating in the arms of its owner. Naruto left immediately, barely staying for Hanuba-sensei to say they were meeting at 8 at their training ground the following morning. He aimlessly headed back to his apartment, the D ranks seemingly causing him to loose brain power; the effort needed was so minimal.

**XXX**

The weeks passed by and before Naruto knew it nearly six months had passed, he and his teammates had progressed at a stupendous rate, they were miles ahead of where they had been when they had graduated, with nearly no Jutsu and on the whole, completely unprepared for the life style of a Nin. Now they were a force to be reckoned with, if they ever got to go on a mission that required them to enter into an actual combat situation that is. They had done almost everything that it was possible to do a D rank mission in, they had walked the Inuzuka Nin dogs countless times and following the initial hunt, they had tracked Tora another seven times. To be frank Naruto was close to murdering someone if the missions didn't become more challenging, Yamatchi didn't seem too bothered but that was probably because he was a Nara. Rin on the other hand was far more vocal in her disappointment, even going so far as to attempt to kill the cat once. Finally dissent in the ranks had reached a critical point; even Yama had agreed that something needed to be done. So it was because of this that Hanuba Hyuga's three students cornered him one day after the latest D rank, which was grocery shopping for an old lady.

"Sensei?" Rin asked sweetly, the tone warning the guys that she was close to murdering someone. Hanuba oblivious to the intricacies of the auburn haired girls voice tones, responded with a casual, (or at least what passed for casual among the famously uptight Hyuga's), "Yes student."

"When are we going to get a proper mission?" the voice became slightly dangerous and even Hanuba was able to pick up on the fact that he should tread carefully here.

"When you are ready." Was the taciturn reply.

"And we're not ready now?" she exploded, her voice reaching a crescendo that would have done a certain pink haired academy student proud. The noise still ringing in his ears, Hanuba glanced around at his other students who responded with a vigorous nod from Yamatchi and a small one followed by an intense glare from Naruto, which in itself was telling as Naruto usually kept things more bottled up than any Hyuga.

Sighing Hanuba nodded and said, "I was waiting for this, in truth you've been ready for a couple of weeks, still what were about to do is not something that should be rushed into, it's a necessary part of becoming a true Shinobi but it's not something to be proud of." By the end of his short speech he noticed that he had everyone's attention, which made him smile slightly, _they really are respectful, _he mused to himself.

"Ne, Sensei, what is it?" Rin asked, all the anger gone at this point and replaced with nervous trepidation.

"Your first kill, and the next step into the world of the Shinobi." He replied shortly. Everyone filched at that, it was a major milestone that had to be dealt with at some point they knew, but it remained a frightening prospect to the three thirteen year olds.

"Meet me at the Hokage tower at ten tomorrow," Hanuba continued, "We'll find a mission suited to this task and accomplish it. Pack light for a couple of days, I'll make sure to take an easy one." He continued in an attempt to get rid of the green tint that had appeared on Rin's face. Nodding he stood up and walked off, without a backwards glance, he knew it was something that the children needed to get their heads around by themselves, and his presence would not be beneficial in this situation. Smiling slightly as he walked away, he couldn't help but look forward to tomorrow, he too was more than ready to give up on the D ranks himself, having had enough of Tora cat hunts back when he was a Genin himself, admittedly it was different Tora but they all behaved the same way, maybe they were conditioned? He mused as he made his way to the clan compound, the branch family was meeting which meant he would have to return to the place he hated more than anywhere else in the world, rather than returning to the apartment he had lived in for nearly a decade.

**XXX**

Naruto sat alone eating a bowl of Miso Ramen in Ichiraku, the place that Mito never shut up about. Absently he poked at his food, thinking about what was to come tomorrow, he had thought he was ready, but the fact that he was less than twenty four hours away from killing someone had thrown his mind into a confused loop. He stood up to go, leaving his food uneaten and began walking away, just as he was about to walk out he heard a voice call out, "Naruto." Turning he was surprised to see that it was his old Sensei from the academy, Iruka.

"Hey Iruka-sensei," the red head said as he turned around and joined the scar faced Chunin at his table, "How have you been?"

"Not bad, I've taken on a new class for their last year," he said, "There's one girl that won't shut up about you." He finished with a smile and Naruto instantly knew who he was referring to.

"So your teaching Mito huh?" he asked, a slight smile crossing his pale face, surprising the man sitting across from him as it was an alien feature on the boy's face, at least in his limited experience with the boy.

"You must care for her a lot?" Iruka asked attempting to draw the usually reserved boy into a conversation, something that he had failed at constantly when he was teaching him at the Academy.

"Like a sister I suppose, although I wouldn't know what that was." The boy responded, attempting to further express how he felt by waving his arms around. Iruka had to laugh at the sight of the usually reserved Naruto Yuki being so flustered.

"It doesn't matter," he said attempting to reassure the boy, who was becoming more and more flustered the longer the conversation continued, "Bonds are important and it's good that you too have each other, it's that which gives the Leaf its strength." Seeing that the boy had something on his mind, but not being close enough to him to be able to talk to him about it comfortably, Iruka rose and bid the young Shinobi good night. Naruto sat there by himself for a while listening to Teuchi make a racket in the back, before he too walked out and disappeared into the night, Kakashi-Niisan wouldn't be the right person to talk about this sort of thing, but there was another… Walking with a new sense of purpose Naruto turned and headed towards another series of apartments, that were where a lot of the Shinobi who were a bit younger than Kakashi tended to live, he could only hope that the person he wanted was there, He sighed and breaking the silence that surrounded him he spoke "Come on Tenzo, you had better be home."

**XXX**

Seemingly Tenzo was in fact home, as Naruto was soon to discover as he came upon the apartment that his pseudo-brother owned. However it was the sight of Tenzo saying goodbye to the purple haired ANBU that Naruto only knew as Neko, as he had never seen her without her mask on and there were far too many people with purple hair in the village to make a judgement based on something that basic. Naruto was surprised and a little shocked that Tenzo the orphan boy whose break came in the form of a snake obsessed maniac attempting to recreate a mutation that was unique to its original wielder in him. As a result of the less than pleasant life that Tenzo had led, first as a nameless orphan from a Shinobi family, of whom there were many wandering the street, to the fact that he had been turned into little more than a complicated clone of the Shodai, there had been little to make Tenzo more than socially inept, hence the strangeness of Tenzo having a girl at his place.

Naruto didn't really know why he and Tenzo had as close a relationship as they did, possibly because they were both victims of said snake maniac, but it was the belief of many that while Tenzo's gifts were the product of experimentation, Naruto was a naturally born user of his own Kekkei Genkai. A belief that privately within his heart of hearts, Naruto was now questioning, there was no evidence of any Yuki being anywhere near fire country around the time he was supposedly born, and in truth, Naruto suspected himself of being little more than a more advanced version of Tenzo with different skills, as cruel as that concept sounded.

Still it was even more likely, at least for Tenzo that the reason their relationship existed was the fact that they were both the students of Kakashi, the only two the man had ever taken. Whereas Tenzo had been groomed and entered into ANBU under Kakashi, Naruto's lessons had been more along the lines of life lessons and survival skills rather than Jutsu or any major aspect of the Shinobi arts. And while it may have been more appropriate to go to Kakashi about what was troubling him, Naruto got the feeling that it would be better to talk to Tenzo about this, the fact that Kakashi was more than likely to read his porn while discussing what was a very serious matter, would be somewhat detrimental to the whole situation. Approaching the door without being noticed, something that was the result, in no small part of Tenzo staring at the point at which Neko had vanished from his sight. Naruto finally spoke and caught the man who had experienced the same horrors he had in his youth by surprise.

"Hey Tenzo, never really figured you as one for a girl you know?" Naruto said wryly, the boy that was hidden behind his usual cold facade emerging for one of its few appearances.

"Naruto," Tenzo replied, he spoke slowly, still after all these years, unused to talking, "what brings you here."

"A major milestone that I must face tomorrow that you would have significant experience with due to your position in our society, can I come in?" Naruto said, his voice taking on a darker quality towards the end. Tenzo's eyes widened in understanding and wordlessly he opened his door and ushered one of his few friends inside.

"You are going to take a life tomorrow." He stated once they were seated in an apartment that was, Naruto noticed, completely devoid of any personal items, something that had bothered him for as long as he had been coming to this particular apartment, which he had been doing since he had first began to live with Kakashi-Niisan.

"Yes," Naruto ground out, still somewhat surprised at how much the concept was bothering him, "It's strange, I always knew that I would be doing it at some point and I knew when I met Hanuba-sensei for the first time that it would likely occur in a situation that he engineered himself, but it still bothers me." He finished with a frown, upset that despite his oath and the knowledge that he was oath bound to serve his Hokage, he was getting worked up over killing some no name bandit.

"It's natural," Tenzo replied, speaking normally, now that they were discussing 'business' as the older man was wont to call it. "The fact of the matter is, there is every chance that should you kill that man, you may well have saved a woman or a girl from a fate worse than death in some ways, you may save the life of a civilian who had the misfortune to be traveling the day that that bandit decides to raid the highway." Seeing Naruto beginning to accept this line of reasoning he continued.

"There is no way for me or anyone else to help you come to terms with what you will be faced with, but the truth of the matter is, you are a Shinobi and you will be faced with this almost every time you take a higher level mission for the village, the fact is you and I were attempts at a perfect Shinobi, Orochimaru made sure of it, and we both know that giving us Kekkei Genkai was not all he did." Naruto's eyes widened at the last comment and Tenzo smiled at the response,

"Yes I know you have suspected and the fact that you don't look like the usual Yuki clansman has thrown most people off, but I remember watching you grow and the chances were not instantaneous, and the snake always did call you his greatest success." That caused Naruto to wince, unbidden memories from the times when they were trapped underneath the Hokage monument, completely at the mercy of a man who was more than willing to sacrifice people to his summons should they have outlived their usefulness rising up from the dark recesses of his mind that Naruto had managed to banish them to after many years.

There was silence in the room as each of its occupants struggled with the demons of their pasts, which were in some ways, many more times fierce than the Biju, if only in the fact that they would never truly leave them alone.

"So have you seen Kakashi-sempai recently?" Tenzo asked breaking them out of their dark thoughts and the convocation turned to more pleasant topics.

**XXX**

It was a content Naruto that left Tenzo's apartment later that night, the man's words while awkward, set his mind at ease. He quickly walked back to his apartment and swiftly fell asleep, despite the occasional sound of a muffled "Hokage!" and "Ramen!" the later occurring more often than the former managing to penetrate the walls that divided his apartment from Mito's. Before sleep claimed him, Naruto smiled, he was ready to face tomorrow, that he knew, it was just a matter of finding out why he was prepared now.

**XXX**

The crisp morning air was cold and the three Genin with the exception of Naruto himself were shivering as they waited for Hanuba to arrive. Ten minutes later he did and with a hand gesture they fell in behind him, fully focused on facing what was to come head on.

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**A.N Apologies for the** **late update, this took me far longer than i thought it would and I ended up putting it off for a good while. Anyway tell me what you liked didn't like ect**. **Update will definitly be next week around this time.**


	5. First blood

**First Blood**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

**Cheers to Namikazestorm for Betaing this **

**And thanks to everyone who has reviewed at this point, seeing nearly 70 reviews is incredibly satisfying.**

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Naruto and his team mates jumped through the trees that dominated the land of fire, a factor that had no doubt been one of the reasons that fire natured clans like the Uchiha had migrated to the region during the clan wars. '_After all,'_ Naruto thought, '_there's nothing like a war lasting generations to motivate you to use everything you can to win.'_ It was the same reason that the Yuki had settled on the islands that made up the land of water; a clan's affinity had largely dictated where they settled. And with the advent of villages little had changed, bar the obvious fact that the land of fire, while it had an extensive fire Jutsu library, it had very little to offer for the other elements. Despite this, Konoha was better off than most, simply because the Senju, refusing to focus on any one aspect of the Shinobi arts had ensured that Konoha had a fairly respectable amount of information on a range of subjects.

All of this was rushing through Naruto's head as he jumped from tree to tree, ignoring the scenery, despite the fact he had never left the village before. But still if you've seen one tree you've seen them all and after three hours of traversing the forest, Naruto had most definitely seen enough trees for a lifetime. He knew he was ignoring the main issue at hand, that being what he was going to be doing shortly, especially as while it was interesting population distribution had never really been his thing. Still the fact remained that while resigned to killing someone, possibly more than one, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole concept.

He hadn't asked the others how they felt about what was coming, Hanuba-sensei was behaving like the quintessential Hyuga about the whole thing, something Naruto intended to ask his Sensei about when he got the chance, it was clear that the Hyuga children he had seen were the exception rather than the rule as far as the clan went. Rin was nervous, he could pick that up, largely due to the fact that Kakashi had spent most of his youth driving observational skills into him, as well as the 'underneath the underneath' concept the masked nin was so fond of. Still she wasn't showing it much and she looked ready to go to work as it was. Yamatchi on the other hand was behaving in an entirely different manner to how he usually would. While there had been hints over the last six months that his friend was changing, Naruto had ignored them, but they were glaringly obvious at the moment, he had never seen the boy so, serious about anything before, he was focused and there was no trace of his usual lazy, Nara personality on his face. Putting it out of his mind, Naruto looked forward and into the thick undergrowth and squaring his shoulders focused on reaching their destination, he would worry about it when they got there.

XXX

The mission was a simple one for a C rank, in fact it was one of the most basic C rank missions there were. Because a nations Shinobi forces were responsible for internal security it was their role to purge any bandits that set up base within the country's boarders, and so it was that Konoha killed the bandits while the Daimyo of Hi no Kuni paid the village a commission to do so.

So it was that the late afternoon sun penetrated the dense forest canopy and showed four figures studying an encampment that despite how poorly constructed it was, seemed efficient none the less. Hanuba turned back to look at his students, the veins around his eyes bulging, signifying the fact that he was using his clans Kekkei Genkai, a powerful ability but one that often fell by the wayside in comparison to the Sharingan or even the legends about the Rinnegan.

"Right, there are around one hundred men in there, no prisoners which will make things easy," he began, "Naruto, do you have any wide area effect Genjutsu you can pull off?" he asked his red headed student who shook his head in the negative.

"No, but I do have a Jutsu that will work, it would be better if I worked by myself however, it's not something that will let you fight easily without major training in using it." He replied, his tone slightly apologetic, but the undercurrent of fear still coming through. That made Hanuba smile, he hadn't thought the boy had it in him to be afraid, '_maybe there's hope for him yet."_ He thought the boy acted so much like Kakashi used to when he was a kid it was scary.

"Fine," he began, closing his eyes briefly, "You take care of the Southern side, there are less of them there, Rin and Yamatchi move around and go in from the east, you should have no trouble working together, Rin, you'll have to be the one dealing with them up close and personal, but Yamatchi should prove more than enough support for you. I'll come in from the Northwest, and deal with anyone who escapes you three." Here he paused and took a breather before continuing, "If any of them escape, it won't matter overly much, they'll be picked up by another team at some point. The main objective of this mission is for you to, at the very least, kill one of them. This is something you truly need to get out of the way as soon as possible, so that you don't freeze in a real combat situation with an enemy Shinobi." When they nodded, he stood looking at them proudly as he smiled and whispered "Good luck, now go." And with that Team Eleven moved off to accomplish their respective goals.

XXX

Naruto was hidden behind a bush surveying his avenue of attack, there were sentries around, but they weren't particularly alert which would make this part fairly easy he hoped, not thinking about what was coming next he pulled out his water bottle, he really needed a better way of carrying water around he decided. Pouring the water onto the ground he put the now half empty bottle away and began to perform the hand signs for a Jutsu that while low level, was particularly useful in these situations, '_Bird, Ox, Dog, Hare." _"**Hyoton: Hiya Misuto no Jutsu (Ice release: Cold mist Jutsu )**[i]." He said and taking a deep breath and placed his hands over the puddle of water. Breathing out he instantly he felt the temperature drop and the water on the ground evaporate even as the water in the air condensed to the point where it felt like he was walking in a very cold haze.

He stood up even as he heard the stunned cries of the guards and knowing he had no time to waste he began to make his way through the fog that he had so successfully created, before he knew what was happening a figure jumped out of the mist, not even thinking, Naruto thrust his hands out and grabbing the man on his shoulders he reached for the ice that flowed within him and pushed it out through his hands, the Raw Chakra poured out of his palms and the man began to scream as the area where Naruto had grabbed was encased in the rock hard ice of the Yuki clan. The screams died on his lips as the ice spread up his neck, freezing the muscles. Naruto continued pushing ice through his hands before dropping the man, a sharp shattering sound when he hit the ground signified that the man's neck was broken. Looking at the body on the ground Naruto frowned, it was the first time he had done that and just as his Sensei had said it would be; it was a devastating technique.

Looking around Naruto frowned; no one would be able to see what happened in the mist as it obscured people's vision even as the cold sapped their strength. Even so he couldn't afford to muck around anymore. Not even thinking of the fact that he had just killed someone, Naruto prepared for another Jutsu, one he was far more familiar with and was in fact the first he had learnt form the scrolls, making the Hare hand sign, the only one he needed at this point, he manipulated the chakra, giving the energy inside him a concept around which it could form. "**Hyoton: Kōri no kunai." (Ice release: Ice Kunai)**[ii] He whispered quietly, no longer sure how close his enemies were.

He felt the chakra flow and shape into a pair of Kunai that he grasped with his hands in a reverse grip. Reaching out to the mist that still hung in the air, he felt through it for a disturbance that denoted a living person and stalked through the now chaotic camp. It was strange, but had Naruto stopped for a moment he would have realised that ever since he had made the decision about what Jutsu to use he had been running on instinct, an instinct that even now was screaming a single line in his head, "_Hesitate and die, Hesitate and die..." _The voice repeated over and over in the boy's head, to which Naruto no longer paid any heed, rather he followed it on a subconscious level.

A disturbance alerted him to an enemy nearby and he spun, the icy blade in his hand flashing up, even as a cry and a gush of blood from the bandits neck signified a killing blow. No longer thinking clearly, and caught up in the rush and flow of battle Naruto dashed into the camp, weaving and diving through the bandits who were still confused and as a result unable to mount anything resembling a response to the ice wielding red head who was tearing through the untrained men who usually spent their time raiding the merchant caravans that made their way to the nation's capital.

Emerging from the mist, caked in the blood of the men he had killed with a wild look in his eyes and the icy mist swirling around him, Naruto mused he must have looked like some kind of demon to the two remaining men who were stationed on the side of the camp that Naruto was currently assaulting. Before they could even draw the Katana's that were sheathed at their sides, Naruto flipped his now bloody Kunai around and with careful aim, let them fly, each finding their mark in the men's bodies, where upon they both fell, screaming in pain as the icy weapons pierced their stomachs. Fortunately their agony was short lived as Naruto strode forward, repeating the Jutsu and slicing their necks, bringing their lives to a sudden end. Naruto glanced around, chest heaving as he looked for more bandits but he could find none.

Collapsing to the ground Naruto could only stare at his body and the blood that covered it in mute horror, at the time he hadn't been aware of what was happening, so caught up in the one sided game of life and death that he was involved in. Even now he could hear the voice in the back of his head screaming as it urged him to find more bandits and kill them, repeating the strange litany that urged Naruto to dance across the battle field spreading death and destruction like the ice demon's that his clan were named after.

Gasping he attempted to wrap his head around what he had done, he had killed, not once but many times, so many times he had actually lost count in the melee. Attempting to wrap his head around what he had just done, he found himself experiencing a moment of clarity in the midst of the chaos that surrounded him, even now he could hear the cries of the camps other inhabitants as they attempted to fight back against his team mates. Grasping onto the clarity he felt, Naruto began to rationalise what he had just done. '_They wanted to kill me,"_ he thought, his heart still hammering away in his chest even as the blood of the men he had just killed dripped down and onto the dirt below him. '_No, I didn't kill humans; I killed animals, animals that were attacking people, defenseless people, merchants who couldn't fight back. Those kinds of beasts don't deserve mercy.' _ Satisfied with what he had done, Naruto picked himself up and drawing water from the air around him, he cleaned the blood off himself. However even as he finished he heard a Scream that belonged to someone he knew very well, '_Rin!"_ he thought before rushing in the direction of the voice, determined to help his teammate.

XXX

The scene that Naruto came across when he had finally managed to track down his teammates was a shocking one; Rin was on the ground, blood pouring out of a cut along her sword hand, while her Tanto lay on the ground, just out of her reach. Yama, Naruto noticed was holding the bandits back with one of his clans shadow Jutsu, although he was straining from the number of men he was restraining. Naruto, thinking quickly poured the rest of the water in his bottle onto the ground and began going through the hand seals for the deadliest Jutsu he knew. Finishing the twenty hand signs that he needed to mold the Chakra Naruto bellowed out "**Hyoton: Sen Supaiku" (Ice release: Thousand spikes )**[iii] Slowly, the water in the air bled out and gathered around the restrained bandits, before suddenly condensing and hardening. The end result was a mass of spikes formed from ice rising up and skewering the restrained bandits, none of whom could do anything but scream as the hardened ice slowly rose up and through their bodies. Dropping the Jutsu when the last screams died away Naruto rushed over to his downed comrade who had taken a bandage out of her supply kit and was somehow managing to wrap it around her cut despite only having one hand to perform the action with. Crouching down Naruto helped her wrap up the wound while Yama kept an eye out for enemies. One that was done Naruto stood up and dragging Rin to her feet despite her protests that she could do it on her own, he looked at his two friends and asked, "You alright?" the stress of their current situation allowing the worry to come through in his voice.

"Yeah fine," Rin replied still breathing heavily "I got caught out for not paying attention and then before we knew what was happening they were everywhere." Pausing she looked at the results of Naruto's Jutsu. "Still," she continued, "you made short work of them with that, whatever that was." She finished while staring at Naruto intently.

"Thanks," he replied, "it's pretty Chakra intensive though, I can't pull too many of them off, still I think we've managed to get most of them. We'll leave you here Rin and then go and do clean up on what's left, Sensei will have finished by now anyway." At the girls nod they deposited her in a hollow they had found and went through the camp, systematically eliminating anyone they could find. Not long after they were met by Hanuba and so it was that no more than two hours after they had entered the camp, the Genin team was out with the camp burning in the twilight.

XXX

Judging it too late to attempt to return to Konoha, they set up a camp not far from the still burning bandit camp and attempted to come to terms with what they had done. It was here that Naruto's conversation with Tenzo and his own on-field rationalization came into their own, allowing him to accept what had happened as his teammates, who had been raised to accept this part of a Nin's work.

Naruto had spent most of the night looking at Hanuba oddly and the older man had a fairly good idea of what was coming, so judging it to be prudent to at least begin addressing the issues around the upcoming conversation, Hanuba began talking.

"Sit down, I figure you deserve to know something about me at this point." he began and all three of his students sat down waiting for him to continue. "There is a division within my clan, the main house and the branch house." Seeing he had everyone's attention he continued, warming to the topic. "The branch is intended to serve the main house and they are not taught to the same level that the main house members are, furthermore to prevent another village form gaining the Byakugan they have a seal called the caged bird put on them." At that point he raised his forehead protected showing everyone the seal on his own forehead. "It has been a major issue over the last few years and the Hyuga that you three are most likely to have come into contact with have been shaped directly by it." It was at this point that Naruto interrupted,

"You mean Neji and the Hinata girl?" he asked curiosity evident in his voice.

"Yes, years ago Neji's father was given to Kumo in an attempt to resolve a situation surrounding an attempted kidnapping on Hinata to gain the Byakugan. The end result was tensions rose even more between the two houses, Neji came to hate his cousin Hinata, and Hinata herself was put under pressure to perform at a level beyond which was necessary for a girl who's personality's unsuited for the duties of a clan head. Her father," he continued, "Likely feels guilty for the loss of his brother and when Neji was the Rookie of your year, he felt even more unsuited for the position of clan head as his children have failed to perform at a similar level. As a result both the children have suffered. Tell me Naruto, you've clearly met both Neji and Hinata, what did you think of them at the time?" Hanuba asked interested in how his student would respond.

"To be frank," he began, "initially I thought you were all bat shit crazy." This pronouncement made everyone around him sweat drop and Hanuba splutter.

"How'd you end up thinking that?" he managed to gasp out, confused as to how the incredibly intelligent boy had arrived at that conclusion.

"Well," he began, "You have Neji, who never talks to anyone unless he has to and spent all his time talking about fate, it's all fate this and fate that." Hanuba nodded at that, having had a hand in training Neji, until he had refused any more help, he was well aware of the boy's attitude and obsessions.

"And Hinata?" He asked, already dreading the answer, knowing what the clan heir did in her free time.

"Well, she just follows my Neighbour around with her eyes active perving on her." He responded neutrally. "It's really weird, you ask her what she's doing and she faints and when you suggest she goes and talks to Mito she just turns red and stammers. I don't like her at all," he continued, "she lacks the nerve to go and talk to her so she just follows her around scaring the hell out of everyone who sees her doing it." He finished with a smirk. "In fact Sensei, prior to meeting you I thought your clan was just as nuts as the Uchiha."

"Really? How's that?"

"Well the Uchiha go nuts and attack the village or each other right?" he asked and seeing Hanuba nod he continued. "Well then we've got the Hyuga, who obsess about fate and stalk people, I thought the eyes just drove you nuts." he finished looking at his Sensei with a strangely fox like grin on his face, showing the fang like teeth that were usually kept hidden.

"Um well yes, we're not all like that, it's just those two have been the subject of an extremely hard life." He finished once again wishing he'd never asked, because now he was forced to wonder if Hinata was a closet lesbian. He looked up to see all three students sniggering, and he smiled, Naruto had changed, not much but the wall he'd but up around himself had come down a bit, which meant that progress was being made. He nodded and then standing up he made his way to his tent,

"Naruto, you're on first watch, Rin second I'll take third and Yama's on fourth." He was quite tired he thought as he struggled into his sleeping bag, fighting tended to do that to him.

XXX

After an uneventful night the morning came and it found team eleven jumping through the trees in a return trip the way they came. Like last time they were silent and like last time Naruto was thinking. '_What happened last night?'_ he wondered, '_something changed about me, I felt more relaxed around them than usual, and it wasn't just Hanuba-sensei trusting us with that story about the Hyuga. No it was something more, I feel different, somehow. Although that change came when I heard Rin scream, something's definitely different._ He frowned, trying to work out what had happened, and then it hit him. _That's it, I think about them the same way I do Kakashi-Niisan and Tenzo-Nii._ So pleased with his deduction skills was he, that Naruto failed to comprehend exactly what this meant for a few moments, and then it hit him like a ten ton brick. He thought about his team mates in the same way that he thought about his pseudo-family. '_Although,_' he mused '_Adding Rin to the group may reduce the complete sausage fest it is at the moment.'_ That was the other thing, he felt more relaxed than he had in a long time, he had proven he was a capable Ninja and he didn't feel the same pressure to perform what he had previously, but the other thing was hearing about the Hyuga leadership the previous night. Their decisions reminded him far too much of the ones he would have made and for some reason, that scared him immensely, maybe it was the fact that he didn't want to lose those that were close to him or be responsible for causing them pain, but Hanuba-sensei's story had affected him deeply. Resolving to talk to Kakashi when he got back, Naruto put it out of mind and focused on making sure that there were no threats to his squad hiding in the undergrowth.

XXX

After an uneventful return trip, Naruto and his squad members stood in front of the Hokage's desk and waited while Hanuba delivered his report to the Hokage.

"So to conclude, the mission was a success, with none of the targets surviving the engagement. All the Genin conducted themselves well, and have emerged as fully blooded and prepared for a Shinobi lifestyle." Hanuba concluded, with a hint of pride showing through at the end of the statement. The Hokage himself was smiling proudly at the students, all of whom puffed themselves up slightly under his gaze.

"Excellent work then, I'll have the money put in your accounts and no doubt the Fire Lord will be pleased that the roadways are safe once again. You're all dismissed."

Emerging from the Hokage tower all three Genin turned to their immediate superior to hear their next set of instructions.

"Excellent work," he began, "you have the next four days off, so spend them with your friends, reacquaint yourself with the village and purchase any supplies you may need. I'll begin introducing more C ranks into our schedule over time and later on we'll take a trip out of the village for an extended survival skills lesson. You're all dismissed." He added when they made no attempt to move from where they were standing. With that announcement all three of them scattered in different directions after promising to meet up at some point.

Naruto ran through the streets, dashing between the civilians in an attempt to get to Kakashi's house as quickly as he could. Arriving there he knocked on the door and when he heard the answering yell he opened it and walked in. Seeing his adoptive older brother looking at him with his one visible eye, Naruto began talking.

"Niisan, he began, um I wanted to talk to you about something that happened on my mission." He began,

"Ohh?" Kakashi giggled perversely and a tic mark formed on Naruto's forehead.

"Nothing like that! You Hentai." He yelled out, "I mean, I had a thought and I wondered if I've been thinking about things the wrong way."

"Yes?" Kakashi said, urging the younger boy on.

"Well it began when I heard Rin scream…" He began and told the entirety of the story right up to the revelation he had had while returning to Konoha. He was surprised to see that Kakashi was giving him his complete concentration, Icha Icha nowhere in sight for a change. When he had finished Kakashi looked at him for a moment and then Naruto added something that had bothered him for nearly as long as he could remember, but had never had the courage to ask. "And Kakashi-Niisan, I was wondering, why you looked after me when I was younger." he asked, the curiosity evident in his voice, undiluted despite the years he had waited to ask the question.

Kakashi studied his guest; in all honesty he was surprised that it had taken this long for him to ask that question. Collecting his thoughts, he decided that it was time, in fact this could be a life changing conversation for the red headed boy and that it was time he heard Kakashi's own life changing experience. "Naruto come and sit down and let me tell you two stories, one's about a boy named Obito Uchiha and the other is about a man named Minato Namikaze and his son named Naruto."

XXX

Naruto emerged from Kakashi's apartment deep in thought, the story about Kakashi's dead best friend had convinced him that he needed to appreciate people more, but it would be difficult to replace a belief system that he had had since he was eight. Then like lightening another thought occurred to him, he had heard of the will of fire, but he had never really thought about it other than being a metaphor for the village, but what was Konoha? It wasn't the buildings that the Shodai had made, nor the ones that had been build following it, it was more than that, the will of fire was the people that made Konoha what it was for him the people like Kakashi, Tenzo and his teammates, even Mito his neighbour who while he wouldn't have counted as a close friend was certainly someone whom he felt responsible to protect like he might a little sister. Nodding he looked up and realised that possibly this was what the Hokage had meant when they had that Conversation, the village was the people close to him that had raised him and shown him love despite his background.

So it was with a new resolve that Naruto walked towards his apartment, determined to do his very best to ensure that his family never ended up in the same position that the stoic Hyuga's had. It wasn't like he was suddenly going to turn into Mito, he really couldn't see himself as being anything but serious, but he was fully prepared to relax a bit and open up to more people. It was strange but perhaps he needed to have seen Rin hurt to fully appreciate what the Hokage was always talking about.

Smiling he set off towards his apartment, fully intending on dealing with these revelations after sleeping for at least a day.

XXX

Naruto woke to a hammering on his door, groaning he rolled over hoping that they would just go away. They didn't. The hammering continued. "Fine I'm coming!" Naruto yelled out and grumbling he staggered out of bed and made his way towards the door. Opening it he was surprised to see both Yamatchi and Rin there, suddenly he felt slightly self-conscious about the fact that he was standing there in only his sleeping pants. "Uhh hi?" he managed weakly. Rin giggled and even Yamatchi snorted.

"You want to come to the compound?" he asked, enjoying the usually stoic Naruto being caught off balance. He and Rin had seen hints of this side of their friend shining through, enough that they knew his usual my life before the village thing was a front rather than what he believed deep down. But it was still a shock to see him act in anyway other than his usual cold soldier personality.

"Yeah sure, just let me get changed." Naruto responded and he shut the door, immediately afterwards they heard banging and crashing from beyond the door before he emerged in his usual dress.

"Come on lets go then." He grumbled, still somewhat upset about being woken up when he had wanted to sleep. Still giggling Rin let the way while Yama and Naruto walked slightly behind, Naruto questioning his friend about what was happening at the Nara clan compound.

"Why," he said shocked, "the newest Ino-Shika-Cho is being informed of their glorious destiny." He said, the humor shining though his comment. Rin burst out laughing at that pronouncement and Naruto openly grinned, grey eyes mirthful, the opposite of the ice like quality they usually displayed.

"I'm sure Ino will be just ecstatic." He replied, remembering the girl's almost fanatical loyalty to the Uchiha last he had spoken to her several months ago, and her desire to be on a team with him.

"The wailing could be heard all though the clan compound this morning." Rin exclaimed gleefully, she herself couldn't stand Sasuke and found Ino's attitude almost as disgusting as Inoichi did. She was surprised at the changes occurring in Naruto, but Hanuba had warned the two that it may be coming, and if she was honest with herself she enjoyed this Naruto far more than the terminally depressed one that was usually present. Returning to the conversation, which Naruto seemed to be enjoying immensely she caught Yama talking about Ino's civilian friend/ rival.

"And she's even more obsessed than Ino is?" Naruto asked incredulously, shocked that there was anyone like that.

"All the civilian students are like that, the funny thing is the clan had to be wiped out to only one member before they enjoyed any popularity." Yama said laughing. Naruto laughed too, it was true, the Uchiha were deeply unpopular, especially in the wake of the Kyuubi attack where some people claimed to have had seen the Sharingan in the beast's eyes. But the moment they were reduced to one arrogant 'genius' called Sasuke; they were Kami's gift to Konoha. Naruto and the others burst out laughing again. '_Yes," _Naruto thought, "_This is a much better way to serve the village."_

XXX

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**A.N: I found this kind of difficult to write in parts and there is one section that is fairly weak as far as the writing goes, but I figured it was better to get the inevitable Hyuga issues sorted out sooner rather than later. As far as Naruto undergoing a rapid personality change, it has been several months, where upon there has been a gradual weakening of his barriers and his standard attitude isn't the same one he has when he's around those who he trusts.**

**Anyway R&R next chapter might be a little while in coming as I've started something a bit different, which I want to spend a bit of time on. **

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[i] Ice release: Cold mist Jutsu: C Rank Jutsu, Supplementary.

Variation of the Hidden mist Jutsu, notable in the fact that it uses Hyoton rather than Suiton. Other notable aspect is that because of the nature of the Chakra used, the mist saps the energy out of the people within the mist due to the cold it radiates.

[ii]  Ice release: Ice Kunai C Rank Jutsu, Offensive, Supplementary.

A type of shape transformation that is used to mould the Hyoton Chakra into the form of a Kunai. The benefit of this skill is that it allows the basic ninja tool to be rapidly replaced and they are much sharper than the standard Kunai. A branch technique of the Hyoton weapon creation Jutsu, the Jutsu is more of a concept of the Jutsu rather than a standalone Jutsu.

[iii] Ice release: Thousand spikes B Rank Jutsu, Offensive.

Creates a series of ice spikes in a certain area, they form slowly however so in most cases the victims must be restrained before the Jutsu is performed. It is one of the easier preformed higher levels Hyoton Jutsu available to a Yuki clansman, but it is very dependent of the water available to determine the height of the spikes.


	6. The Nature of the tragedy

**I Don't own Naruto**

**Apologies for how long it took, in the end this hasn't been betaed so if anyone sees any mistakes that disrupt the reading flow please let me know**.

**And again thanks everyone for reviewing**

**And may I just say how awesome the latest chapter was? Biju and Kyuubi have always been some of my favorites and the Kyuubi just became that much more awesome. It was inevitable that it would happen but still cool.**

** Enjoy**

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**Alec McDowell: I do have some ideas for that, but they need development and won't come up for a while.**

**slatedfox: Again that'll come up later, although the sibling bond might not be as great as people seem to want it to be.**

**ShadowStorm666: Yeah you are correct and I think I might return to that point at some stage. **

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**The nature of the tragedy**

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It had been a little over a year since Naruto had graduated and passed into the care of Hanuba Hyuga, Jonin of Konoha no Sato and begun his career as a Shinobi. It seemed strange to think about it like that, but it seemed like only a couple of weeks had passed since Naruto was sitting by the swing talking about what his dreams were. It was a far cry from what he was doing now in any case. Naruto lay on the branches, Chakra infused ears straining listening for a sound. He heard the snap of twigs and he silently drew five shuriken from his pocket, usually he would have just made them, but the fact that his opponent could sense Chakra meant that his usual methods would not suffice in this situation.

He head the intruders footsteps, although quiet they echoed across the silent forest as he waited for them to come into sight. Finally they did, eyes closed they sensed for Naruto's presence, they wouldn't find him, one of the benefits of having a high Chakra control was the ability to avoid detection by most sensor ninja's if you focused on controlling the amount of Chakra you were expelling into the air.

Naruto waited, '_all most there, one more step, and there.'_ Finally she took that last step and Naruto jumped up throwing his Shuriken. The weapons screamed as they tore through the air, before cutting through his opponent's clothes and pinning them to the tree opposite the one Naruto had begun his ambush from. Jumping down to his prisoner, he formed the hand sign for what was becoming his most often used Jutsu and Rin Yamanaka found an icy Kunai at her throat.

"Yield." Naruto's voice echoed through the forest, void of any form of life save the two of them. Rin struggled but she knew it was futile, she was trapped and at the boy's mercy.

"I surrender." She ground out, this wasn't supposed to happen damn it. But the fact remained that Naruto had captured her, easily in fact which made it all the more galling.

"Here," Naruto thrust out a blue tag. "You know what to do…" whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a new voice that echoed across the forested area.

"Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow imitation Jutsu)" Naruto felt like cursing, but restrained the feeling, barely.

"Right, now both of you surrender to me, or I'll make you both cut your throats." Both Naruto and Rin groaned as Yama made his presence known, and in the process won the game that they were engaged in. He chuckled and tossed his two teammates two red tags which they reluctantly attached to themselves and followed their black haired teammate out of the forest and back to their camp.

Hanuba-Sensei was waiting for them and uncharacteristically grinned when he saw them, although Naruto was no longer sure that his Sensei was actually as cold a person as he made himself out to be. He put the thoughts out of his mind; he had long since given up trying to understand the Hyuga's.

"Yama won?" the Jonin asked and his grin widened when he saw their reluctant nods.

"What did you learn this time?" he asked.

"Not to rely on my sensing techniques wholly." Rin said, glaring at Naruto as if it was his fault.

"Good, you need to remember that while, they will get more effective the more you practice Rin, at this point your other senses are just as useful, if not better in some situations." She nodded and sat down, taking out some of the ration packs that the team had and passing them around.

"What about you Naruto?" Naruto sighed; it was a simple lesson, and one that he constantly needed reminding of.

"Keep my eyes open." He grumbled, making Yama laugh.

"Indeed, although you have all made tremendous strides and we only need to polish your skills at this point, it is worth remembering that basics kill." He paused and looked at each of his students individually before turning back to Naruto, "Clones would solve your problem I assume there is a form of Hyoton clone?" he asked.

Naruto nodded, personally he disliked clone techniques, but he couldn't deny their usefulness.

"Right, we'll break for lunch and after this you can work on your own, clan related or otherwise, I will be around for advice naturally, but personal development is always the best. The Genin nodded, this was an old spiel and they were aware of their Sensei's belief in this avenue of learning, of course it worked, most things Hanuba Hyuga believed in tended to work.

Sitting on his log, absently poking his rations, Naruto wondered how Kakashi was handling being a Jonin Sensei. Truthfully he doubted he would be very good, Kakashi was good for one on one teaching, but teaching three Genin was probably out of his league, particularly Genin as messed up as the three Kakashi had gotten. The Sandaime must have had a really messed up sense of humor to have given the Jonin with possibly the most issues in the village, a mentally disturbed Uchiha, a Hyper active Jinchūriki and the most rabid fan girl Naruto had ever had the misfortune to meet.

Still, he mused, the Sannin, were just as bad at the beginning apparently, he'd drop in and observe them next time he was in the village he decided. He looked towards the coast; he could just make out Nami no Kuni, if he strained his eyes. Breaking out of his thoughts he looked around, it had been several months since that first C rank mission and they had taken several more, enough so that while Naruto would never be completely able to accept killing, he could see the necessity of it both for his team and for the benefit of Konoha. This had gone on for several months and then Hanuba had taken them out here, to experience living in the wild for two weeks and to undergo training away from the village's distractions, it had worked, very well in fact. Naruto and his team had made huge advancements in the Ninja arts since they came, here and Naruto personally couldn't wait for the Chunin exams that were coming up. Finishing his meal he stood up and moved to the corner he had taken to working on his Genjutsu, Hanuba was a willing and able test subject, and over the last week, Naruto's love for the illusionary arts had grown, and he hoped to one day be as good as Itachi Uchiha or Kurenai Yuhi.

Brushing all thoughts aside, he concentrated on casting one of the bigger Yuki Genjutsu, there were quite a number that he wanted to have done by the time they returned to the village.

XXX

You wouldn't know it by looking at him, or even speaking to him, but Kakashi Hatake was a hard man. He had experienced much and he had killed far too many people for him to be as goofy as he pretended to be. The serious side of himself was something that he rarely let escape him, but he was coming close to it right now.

He looked as his Genin squad, he liked them all, even Sasuke, as hard as that was, but even so they were trying his patience. He repressed a groan, this was meant to be a simple C rank, instead he was contending with Zabuza Momochi and Kakashi was in no shape to be in a fight like that anymore, maybe if they were going to find themselves in these situations he should start training more, he'd have to ask Tenzo and Yugao if they were up to training with him again. He was a long way from the ANBU who had trained Itachi.

He returned to looking at them, Mito and Sasuke had done well so far, Sakura not so much, but that had been expected. But none of them would be able to fight the Demon brothers, Zabuza and the Hunter Nin by themselves. He needed help, desperately and the way back to Konoha was likely closed off at this point. Still he did have the flare. He looked at his students again, he had a week to train them, but it wasn't enough, Mito had the potential to become good, but her arrogance prevented her learning anything worthwhile in the week, Sakura was still too concerned with Sasuke to achieve anything, and Sasuke needed to active his Sharingan, something that Kakashi had hoped would happen here with a bandit. No there was nothing for it he would need to use the flare. He thought back to the conversation with the Hokage just prior to leaving.

_XXX_

"_I have a bad feeling Kakashi." _

"_Hokage-sama?" _

"_There are some disturbing reports coming out of wave, I think that the client isn't telling us the whole truth, but I can't do anything about it now. So it would be best if you keep your eyes open and be prepared for anything."_

"_Yes Hokage-sama."_

"_However there may be a way that we can get some help to you." _

"_Hokage-sama?"_

"_There's a team on an extended training trip near wave, take a flare and call them in if they are needed, they should prove more than capable."_

"_Yes Hoakge-sama."_

"_Another thing, Kakashi, if you see a fellow by the name of Gato, of Gato Shipping, it would be in the village's interests to see him taken dealt with."_

"_Is that a Mission Hokage-sama?"_

"_No consider it an added benefit for the village, should an opportunity fall into your lap, don't search for him however, chances are we may get an outside contract on him, but keep your eyes, sorry eye open for him." _

"_Yes Hokage-sama."_

"_Good luck Kakashi and I hope you won't need that flare, but I have a feeling, and you shouldn't ignore bad feelings when you get to my age. And if it comes down to it, the others are expendable, keep Mito alive, we need the Jinchūriki otherwise we run the risk of leaving ourselves open to attack."_

_Kakashi nodded, he would have protected Mito any way, Sasuke was no Obito and he cared more for his Sensei's daughter than he did a third cousin of his best friend. And as cruel as it was Sakura had nothing going for her anyway, there were other people like Naruto with good Chakra control and with larger reserves than Sakura._

_XXX_

Kakashi sighed, he had hoped he wouldn't have to use it but there really was no way out of it. He wondered who the team was; the Hokage had refused to tell him, although from the old man's expression he knew the Jonin at least. He really hoped it wasn't Gai's team. That was the last thing the mess he found himself in needed, Gai, a Gai clone and another brooding genius with fancy eyes. He wasn't sure about the girl. She had a fetish of some kind he remembered Naruto saying? Putting the thoughts out of mind he turned around and looked at the bridge builder's family and his Genin.

"I'm going to call in some help, and I'll start training you three tomorrow." Mito looked absolutely giddy at that, which was nice, when the training began she usually refused to do it, saying she was awesome enough which counter balanced it all. Sasuke looked interested and Sakura was looking to Sasuke to try and get an indication of what to do.

"What does it matter? Everyone's going to die!" that was the grandkid, seemed like he needed to lighten up to Kakashi, he probably hadn't seen his best friend crushed by a rock, or his sensei killed by a rampaging fox made out of chakra.

"Regardless, they are available and we need the help, they have more experience than you three do so they will be able to hold up their end in a fight."

Sasuke smirked, he would smirk Kakashi thought sourly, maybe the boy thought he could swap teams.

"Anyway, go to bed, we'll be up early and I need to set the flare. Tazuna can you help me outside." No one argued, thankfully, and for that Kakashi was eternally thankful for as he struggled outside and pumped the chakra needed into the thing before it fired, a bright red trail of smoke coming out before it burst into a bright white light. In the wake of that, there was a huge mass of neon yellow smoke floating in the breeze. It was done and now Kakashi could try and recover. He hadn't thought having a team of Genin would be so awful; he had been ready for a lot of D ranks and not much else. Next time he'd make sure he got three Nara's he decided. At least he would be able to read in peace that way. He wondered what Naruto was doing; his Otouto had to be doing something better than this.

XXX

Haku watched the bright cloud rise into the sky. She knew what it was of course, but she hadn't expected the Konoha nin's to have another team anywhere close enough to use one. It would be problematic she decided as she walked further into the hideout to let Zabuza-sama know of the latest development. Truthfully she was really starting to hate wave. It had better be worth it or she was going to be pissed off. She glowered at the Demon brothers as she walked past them, why couldn't they have just killed the old man, she disliked killing, hated it in fact, but still one death was better than the current nightmare they were in.

"Zabuza-sama, the Konoha nin's have let off a flare, reinforcements will be coming." She said respectfully.

Zabuza cursed, something he was doing more and more in Wave she reflected.

"We'll have to wait it out, hopefully you and the demon brothers can deal with them and I'll have to deal with Kakashi," Here he grinned, or at least she thought he grinned it was hard to see with the bandages in the way, "he's not nearly as strong as the Bingo book says." Haku felt like shrugging, really she just wanted to finish here and go somewhere else, she disliked that slime ball Gato immensely. Preferably Kakashi would kill him and everyone could leave happy. With that thought she left, she would have to find herbs at some point to help Zabuza-sama, who was starting to get on her nerves, surely someone other than Gato could have employed them?"

XXX

Naruto felt a hand shaking his shoulder and instantly he was awake, grabbing the kunai that he kept by his sleeping bag he sat up and just about stabbed Hanuba-sensei in his eyes.

"Sensei?" he questioned, unsure about what was happening, he'd been having a very pleasant dream about a black haired girl with very nice legs, doing some very nice things and then he woke to those creepy eyes staring at him.

"Grab your stuff we're heading out." Hanuba said, clearly oblivious to what he had interrupted. Naruto nodded and so it was a fully outfitted team Hanuba who were awake and ready to move at five thirty in the morning.

They quickly feel into formation and began the long run across the water towards Wave. Naruto was looking forward to this in a strange way, meeting another team would be interesting, especially if it was Gai's, he hadn't seen any of them recently and he was curious to see what it was like studying under a famous Nin like Gai. He glanced around at his companions, Hanuba-sensei; well he could only see the back of his face, although mind you the front usually wasn't that informative either really. Rin had her eyes closed and was clearly practicing the sensory technique that she had been working on, it was a useful skill to have, and one that came up occasionally in her branch of the clan. Yama on the other hand was looking around the area with interest, not that Naruto really thought he would find anything interesting until they reached the mainland of Wave.

Naruto then considered himself, Wave was a very humid area, and so he wouldn't be as drained as he was when he used his skills back in the land of Fire, so he may finally be able to use his best technique to date in combat, and of course use his own original jutsu. A smile graced his features, the overhanging fangs appearing again, he had been showing them more and more lately, funnily enough he had noticed Mito had them as well, maybe it was because they were both Uzumaki? He was going to have to talk to the girl about that at some point, she deserved to know why she was alone in any case, yeah, he would have to do that when he next saw her.

Looking around he saw that they were halfway there already, water walking was a skill that came easily to them all at this point, control was a requirement for both Yama and Rin's techniques to work best and Naruto had always been blessed with exceptional control considering his reserves, a gift from Orochimaru he supposed, he wondered what else the snake man had given him, he had had far more done to him than Tenzo he knew, but how much remained a mystery, and it would remain so until he met Tsunade. The Slug Princess was the only one with a good enough understanding of genetics to perform the required procedures to find out in any case.

XXX

Sasuke Uchiha was angry, he had been angry for years, angry and scared. Truthfully he was terrified; he had been terrified ever since that night and that man. He hoped the terror would go away when he killed that man, but he had been afraid for so long he didn't know if it would ever go away. He supposed that the fear was the reason why he respected Mito more than the other people in his Academy year, simply because she had experienced the same fear, he could see that, but she had managed to beat it, and he wouldn't, or rather couldn't let anyone close until he had beaten the fear himself. Otherwise how could he look his fellow orphan in the eye? It was that more than anything that made him hate Itachi, that and the fact he killed his mother.

He could have dealt with his father being killed, the man had never looked at him until Itachi-Nii had begun to act odd, and by then it was too late in many ways, he liked the attention but the man would never replace Kaa-san or Itachi himself.

So it was that Sasuke Uchiha looked at his team, Kakashi he respected, the man had the Sharingan, somehow, and that meant something to the thirteen year old. But more than that the man was strong and could maybe help him get rid of the fear.

Mito Uzumaki was special too, not in the same way as Kakashi, she was strong in a different way, he admired her more for the fact he hadn't bowed before the alter of loss that he had, he respected her for that. It was for that reason that he planned on making her his wife. The fact she didn't pander to him also meant something.

Sakura on the other hand, he didn't respect, he put up with her because she had potential, but she wasn't strong like Kakashi, nor was she the role model that he had in Mito, she simply was. And she made no attempted to be anything more, she had no dreams, (He knew what she wanted but it was an impossibility, something that would never happen). And so it was that Sasuke hated Sakura. Sasuke was oblivious to the fact that this had opened his heart to the darkness that rested in ever Uchiha, nor would he have cared had he known. There was only the fear and power to make the fear go away, hatred's only purpose was to hide his fear.

So it was that Sasuke sat and waited for the reinforcements to come, Kakashi had said they were Genin, but he wanted to know what kind of Genin they were, were they Mito's and Sasuke's? Or were they Kiba's and Sakura's? People who had never experienced life's cruel realities and seen the world for what it truly was. He hoped they were people he could admire, there were so few since that man had taken everyone away from him.

Sasuke Uchiha was an avenger, not because he hated but because he was afraid, and being an avenger made the fear go away… at least for a little while.

XXX

Sakura Haruno was a Genin, the first in her family since the clan wars actually. However Sakura had never stopped to think about what that meant. To her, it was simply a way to get Sasuke-kun and prove to everyone that she mattered. She knew nothing of loss and lacking any Ninja in her family she never learnt the lessons her classmates had.

Her parents had warned her away from the path she had taken; they had warned her away from Sasuke even. But she hadn't listened and persuaded herself that Sasuke would eventually notice her and she would show everyone that she, Sakura Haruno mattered. Had she known what drove Sasuke her feelings may have been different, but she loved her dark prince for the same reasons, although they would never admit it, that another Genin admired her other teammate.

The mission so far had opened the pink haired girls eyes, but she had willingly closed them again, she didn't want to see the reality, the illusion was so much better, and she willed reality away, by promising herself that Sasuke-kun would save her, after all that was the ending to the fairy tale.

She thought little of her team beyond Sasuke, Sensei had promised to protect her, which made her appreciate him all the more, with Sensei and Sasuke, she was safe. She liked to think Mito was a non-event, the baka had been an idiot, she had gotten better somehow, but then she had failed the test, passing some other way. Therefore she was a proven baka so who knew what to expect with her.

Sakura didn't know what to think about another team coming, she wanted to think Sasuke was enough, but in her heart of hearts, she just wanted to hide. Although she would never admit it, she admired Mito too, if only because she wasn't afraid to hide, but she would never admit that to anyone, even herself.

She hoped the new team could help, because she knew that she wasn't and she had no idea how to help either, and that made her feel even more worthless than Ami used to make her feel.

Sakura wanted an illusion to hide away in… unfortunately she had left it behind in Konoha.

XXX

Mito Uzumaki may have seemed like an idiot, but this was far from the truth. She was a product of her environment in the same way that every child is, the fact that hers was among the worst mattered little. What she wanted most of all was acceptance, something that she had been denied her whole life for a reason she didn't understand, she knew now and she hated what was inside her for it. The fact that the Biju was as much a victim of its own circumstances never crossed her mind. After all Mito Uzumaki's greatest failing was her arrogance, and that arrogance meant that she had to be first in everything, that included misery.

She admired very few people, the Hokage, Iruka and Naruto were among the few she did. After all whom could she admire but the people who saw her as a person or worth. Her life was a tragedy, the fact that her parents had known what they condemned her to all those years ago made it all the more so. It was perhaps for the best that she didn't know the whole truth, or rather wouldn't for a couple of years yet. Tragedy after all rarely bread acceptance, and Mito Uzumaki, while she may have been the exception in many cases, this wasn't one of them.

So it was that locked within her own thoughts, she pondered the new team, she hoped they wouldn't look at her with those cold eye's, Kakashi may have been a pervert, Sasuke a Teme and Sakura a fan girl, but at least they didn't have cold eyes, she didn't know if she could have coped if they had cold eyes.

Thinking of that, her eyes turned to Sasuke, she admired Sasuke, not like his fan girls did. But because out of everyone he had the potential to know how she felt, this had bread a certain amount of respect between them, if she was brutally honest with herself, she was pleased he was on her team, at least he knew what loss was. Kakashi knew too, it was in his eyes. But Sasuke was more important because he was like her and because of that she would make sure to keep him close.

Deep within the girl, crimson eyes opened and looked at its surroundings; it was different but similar to what it had experienced, ever since it fell under the spell of those foul eyes so many years ago. It screamed, its maw opened wide as it once again found its self in a prison, so similar but at the same time so different to its old one. Nine tails swirled around its body in rage, but it didn't try to break out, what was the point? If it were a lesser beast the Kyuubi would have been broken long ago, but the Kyuubi was more than that, it was the Kyuubi, and because of that it would wait. It would refuse to bow to a mere human, it would show everyone that its kind weren't not tools. The Kyuubi was trapped by its own nature far more than any cage it had found itself in, and that was the beasts own personal tragedy.

It was a tragedy that the two heroes of their own respective tragedies would never realise their similarities… but then again that was the nature of the third tragedy that hung around Mito Uzumaki. Truly her family was cursed by circumstance.

XXX

Naruto sighed as his feet hit land once again, he found water walking an easy exercise usually, but that had taken a fair amount of effort if only for the length of time they had spent doing it. Hanuba gestured and Naruto and his team mates fell in behind the man, soundlessly moving forward and further into the island.

"Rin, try and sense the other team, they should be easy to find, just look for the biggest chakra signatures."

"Yes Sensei." Rin replied and moved in between the two boys, and closing her eyes began to try and find out where they were meant to be going.

"Hey, Sensei what was that flare thing for?" Yama asked as they sprinted forward and began making their way to where that village was.

"It's a Flare; they're left over from the war mostly." The older man replied, "Typically they're used to call in reinforcements, although there was a Tokubetsu Jonin called Kushina who used one as a weapon at one point."

"How did she do that?" Naruto asked his curiosity obvious.

"Pointed it at the enemy, lit it and burnt their eyes out, she wasn't the most subtle of people." Came the reply, the man's tone obviously showing that he was lost in the memories of the past.

"Huh." Was all Naruto could say, it sounded clever but not very graceful, kind of thing a thug like person would come up with, Mito Uzumaki in particular.

Eventually the village came into view, and Naruto was reminded of the bandit camp that they had torched so early on in their careers. The signs of poverty and desperation hung in the air; making it obvious to the Shinobi team that Wave was having some very big problems.

"Not really a pleasant place is it?" Yama asked, glancing around. Naruto just grunted in response, searching for threats, a difficult task due to the huge number of unwashed villagers on all sides. Neither Hanuba or Rin bothered doing that much and the black haired boy fell into silence.

"Sensei, we're close." Rin murmured, her eyes remaining closed.

"Keep sharp everyone, be on your guard." Hanuba said, his fingers unconsciously fingering the Kunai that was strapped to his waist.

"The sooner we get to wherever the other team is the better." Naruto muttered to Yama, the taller boy nodding to his friends comment before his ever moving eyes returned to scanning the civilians, they weren't much of a threat, but even an academy student could kill a Kage in some situations, hence another importance lesson for a Shinobi, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

"They're there." Rin said, opening her eyes and pointing to a home that looked slightly better off than the others they had passed. Hanuba nodded and strode forward, Naruto following, his attention slipping seeing as they were so near their goal. Yama sighed when he saw that, Naruto was a good, even a great Genin, but he often forgot small details. He and Rin bought up the rear, doing the job the red head should have been doing himself.

Hanuba walked forwards and knocked on the door, which was opened by a kid about the same age as Konohamaru, if Naruto had to guess.

"What do you want?" the kid asked.

"Well he's a bundle of joy, isn't he?" Rin muttered, glaring slightly at the boy. Naruto snorted, the kid seemed like he had terminal depression.

"We're Konoha ninja; we were called in last night." Hanuba said, looking at the kid, who clearly cowed by their Sensei's freaky eyes let them in.

"Come in then, it doesn't matter you're all going to die." The kid muttered before turning and walking into the building, "Mum! More people are here!"

Naruto and his team mates followed the kid in. _There must be something in the water to make them all depressed and against washing. _Naruto thought, at least their possible hosts seemed to be in clean clothes, which made them oddities in the village from what Naruto had seen.

Walking in they soon came across, Kakashi of all people lying in a bed.

"Well this is surprising." Hanuba-Sensei said looking around.

"Yeah." Was all Kakashi could say in return.

"Kakashi-Niisan?" Naruto said, wondering what the hell the man was doing in Wave of all places, but if Kakashi was here then that meant that-.

"Naruto-Kun!"

Mito was here too. _Huh, at least this will be interesting._ The red head thought before he was tackled to the ground by the blonde girl.


	7. Fated Meeting

**Fated Meeting**

* * *

**I don't own Naruto.**

**Wow over 100 reviews. Cheers to everyone who's given one, its very satisfying hitting triple digits.**

* * *

Sasuke watched the new arrivals, one of whom seemed to be related to his sensei and knew Mito as well. He felt a hint of jealousy when she hugged the boy. His team mates looked amused, but he didn't miss the fact that their eyes were darting around the room, identifying the exits and potential enemies.

"Well why don't we all introduce ourselves?" Kakashi said as he did that infuriating eye smile, the red head, _Naruto_ he corrected himself stood up and grinned, Sasuke wondered how strong these people were, they were well trained that much was obvious.

"Fine, I'm Naruto Yuki." Naruto said, the smile faltering as he studied Sasuke, he was surprised that this was the team they were supporting, but it wasn't a bad thing, to be honest he was looking forward to seeing how good the last Uchiha was.

"Yamatchi Nara." Yama said before he yawned and walked over and sat in a corner, back against the wall and to all appearances asleep, although you could see his eyes darting around relentlessly.

"Rin Yamanaka." Was all the auburn haired girl said before she sat down watching the proceedings in a coolly detached manner.

"And I am Hanuba Hyuga." Naruto's sensei said, his voice emotionless and neutral, showing nothing of the person who lived behind the mask.

Kakashi nodded and said, "Well I'm Hatake Kakashi and these are my cute little Genin, Sasuke Uchiha, Mito Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno." The eye smile widened when both the girls exclaimed that they could have introduced themselves while Sasuke simply glared at his sensei before returning to brooding.

"So what is the situation Kakashi?" Hanuba asked his fellow Jonin, Hanuba was older than Kakashi by more than a good decade, in fact he was closer in age to the man's own sensei, Minato than the copy nin. But they had worked together often enough to be familiar with one another, few active Shinobi were unfamiliar with Kakashi anyway.

"Well..." Kakashi began and proceeded to explain the mess that the latest incarnation of team seven found itself in, from the fight with Zabuza to the swordsman's rescue by the fake hunternin and how they ended up in the house they found themselves in.

"So how long do we have?" Naruto asked when his older brother figure had finished speaking, to be honest he was rather looking forward to this, fighting a member of the seven swordsman was an opportunity that didn't come about often and he had heard that Zabuza had rebelled over the treatment of the bloodline clans, something that might mean he might be able to tell Naruto if there were any left aside from himself.

"About a week." Kakashi said, looking around before continuing, "I'm going to train my guys up a bit, the Genin will have to deal with the hunternin and its likely that the demon brothers were retrieved as well, and they will be warned at this point so the fight won't be as easy as last time."

Hanuba nodded, it all made sense, and Kakashi's reasons for calling in help were sound as well, fresh Genin weren't meant to deal with sort of stuff, even if the team was meant to become the second coming of the Sannin or whatever the council was planning for the three kids.

"Very well, we will continue with what we were doing, it makes little difference where we train." Hanuba said to Kakashi before turning and looking at the bridge builder's family, "Thank you for housing us. He said, bowing to the family who looked slightly shocked at the level of formality they were being shown, but then again, no one could do formal like the Hyuga's

XXX

"So what are we doing today sensei?" Rin asked as she and her teammates walked towards the bridge.

"We can't get much done here, and with a major fight coming up you lot can't exert yourselves too much so we'll just work on some light Taijutsu and weapons skills at this point, there's little else we can do, all three of you have enough control that anymore would make little difference in a week.

"So how are we going to do that?" Naruto asked, but before Hanuba could answer he was cut off by Yama sniggering.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, before answering his own question, "It's the same thing we always do, sparing on the water." Hanuba nodded, while Naruto muttered various curses under his breath about what Nara's could do with their genius I.Q.

"Regardless, that is indeed what we will be doing, although at this point, it will be a three way spar between the three of you, unfortunately you have reached the point where for me to use the next level of the Jukon, would lead to some serious injuries due to the lack of trained medic nin in the area." Hanuba said, sounding almost regretful about this, which he actually might be, Naruto thought, '_he seems to enjoy sparring with us.'_

Naruto strode forward, his usual chakra forged Kunai in his hands, Hanuba had drilled all three of them relentlessly until they were ambidextrous, and the skill had meant that Naruto could now wield a blade in either hand with almost equal skill, just as Rin could easily switch hands with her Tanto and Yama could do, well whatever it was Yama did, Naruto would have been the first to admit that he had no idea what the black haired boy would do when it came time for him to use weapons, the nature of the squad often left Yama acting as mid to long range support, and his jutsu's fulfilled that job admirably without resorting to any tools.

Naruto walked forward until he was about fifty feet from the shore, water walking came easily to him, just as tree walking when they had done that exercise, it mattered little here however, the other two were just as good as him after all.

"No holds barred?" He called out to his sensei as the other two walked forward to meet him, Yama hanging back and Rin fingering her sword excitably.

"Naturally." Was the droll reply and the Rin rushed forwards even as Naruto jumped back after throwing his kunai at the girl, and flashing through hand signs rapidly.

XXX

"So what are we gonna do Kakashi-sensei? Huh huh?" Mito asked excitedly as she followed her sensei and teammates into the forest that surrounded Tazuna's house and the bridge he was working on.

"Very important training." Was all they could get out of Kakashi until they came to a tree that was larger than the other ones.

"Today…" Kakashi began before pausing dramatically, "You're going to learn to climb trees!"

…

"That sounds really boring." Mito said, voicing every one below fifteen's thoughts on the matter.

"Without using your hands." Kakashi added before he demonstrated by walking up the tree, this meant that Mito's enthusiasm rapidly returned and she excitedly began to voice her eagerness for the exercise. It was Sasuke that asked the question that everyone should have asked in the first place.

"Why do we want to this?" the raven haired boy asked, which immediately caused his female teammates to turn to their sensei for an explanation.

"Well," he began "This improves your control which is essential to learning higher level Jutsu and not wasting your chakra during battle. Some people find it easy, usually due to their low chakra reserves or due to another factor, like being naturally blessed with good chakra control, like Tsunade of the Sannin or even Naruto, who's always had good control. But anyway you need to practice if you want to be any good at Genjutsu, ninjutsu or any aspect of the Shinobi arts really. This is just the first step too, in fact..." Here he paused again closing his eye before he opened it and jumped down, landing gracefully in from the three pre-pubescent teens he had been assigned to teach.

"Come I'll show you what good chakra control leads too." He said and turned away walking towards the bridge, the others followed. Ten minutes later all four of them were watching the three way duel that was in progress, each of them with the exception of Kakashi who already knew what the three older Genin were capable of, shocked at what they saw.

Sasuke smirked, these people were strong, especially the Naruto kid, he could use ice it seemed, which was odd, there was no record that he knew of in the village about people that could use ice, he didn't like not knowing, and it was especially odd, as it was a skill set that his clan would usually have copied, the ice senbon that he had just spat out were a testament to that.

"Sensei, can you use ice too, seeing as Naruto's your younger brother?" Sakura asked, Sasuke and Mito turned to look at Kakashi who was concentrating on the fight, marveling at how much Naruto had improved since he had last seen him.

"Naruto isn't really my brother, I adopted him years ago, and no Sasuke you can't copy those techniques with a Sharingan eye it's a Kekkei Genkai unique to his clan." Kakashi said still watching the fight.

"How come he never told me that he could do all this awesome stuff with ice?" Mito asked, clearly put out with the boy from withholding this from her.

"It's not common knowledge in the village and I think Naruto prefers to keep it that way," was the response, Kakashi paused as he watched Naruto and Rin dish out a flurry of blows each, none of which managed to hit. "Naruto's not even of the village originally, his clan came from Kiri, the same as Zabuza, but there's a civil war going on there at the moment between people who see bloodlines such as what Naruto possesses as an abomination and are killing off the clans and those that are pro bloodlines. In any event it's not public knowledge and the Hokage prefers to keep it hidden that there is a Yuki in our village, and I imagine that Naruto doesn't really feel comfortable about telling people about something that led to him becoming an orphan."

He purposely didn't tell them about Orochimaru, they still weren't sure what the man had done to Naruto and the only person who could tell them aside from the man himself was miles away from the village and refused to return for any reason. And he didn't want to have to tell them about the man at all, the further away the day was that the topic of Orochimaru arrived the better it would be.

"Anyway, this is water walking it's a higher level of control from the tree walking and there are further levels that build on it, as well as many that individuals have come up with to help aid them in improving their personal skill set. Anyway, here use these Kunai to mark your progress and you'll need a running start at first to get up now pick a tree and get to work." He said, tossing a Kunai at each of them and then sitting on nearby rock and pulling out his copy of Icha Icha, the clearing was soon filled with the sound of perverted giggles and the sound of Kunai slashing at bark as the three Genin attempted to complete the exercise that they had been assigned.

It was slow going and it proved to be far harder than they had assumed it to be although Sakura seemed to find it much easier than the other two, it was unsurprising to Kakashi who despite appearances was actually watching them intently, he would have stepped in, but he felt that the best way to get them to improve was to allow them to grow as individuals, to be honest he felt that if he showed them too much attention then they would hamper their own development when the time came to do individual training.

XXX

Naruto jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding Rin's sword and the barrage of Kunai that Yama had thrown at him, they were blunt of course, all the edged weapons they were using were, but they still hurt when they hit. He ran through a couple of hand signs and breathed out, the Jutsu didn't really have a name, or at least Naruto hadn't found one for it, all that happened was you breathed out very cold air and could freeze surfaces, it was a tactical Jutsu, not very useful or flashy in a straight up fight, but a spar on the water on the other hand…

Rin took a step forward intent on beating her red headed team mate into the ground, she still hadn't forgiven him for yesterday in the forest, when she suddenly felt her foot slip, cursing she fell forwards and lost her concentration falling through the water and soaking her clothes. Grumbling she went to stand up and after regaining her purchase on the water she looked around and watched as her two male teammates and best friends proceeded to try and beat each other to the ground in a brutal Taijutsu exchange that would likely end with Naruto on top. She wasn't sure why it usually turned out that way, Naruto was just naturally more aggressive and it meant that in a straight fight against someone who was at best his equal; the red head usually came out on top.

She glanced around, she had sensed the presences of the other team, but they had left her sensing range by this point. She smiled Kakashi, who Naruto talked about frequently, although she had never met the famous nin until today, had clearly intended to show the rookies just how far they had to go. She wasn't arrogant or anything, but she did recognise that the Rin Yamanaka who had just graduated the academy, couldn't hold a light to the Rin Yamanaka who was at this moment standing on top of the water, dripping wet and glaring at her sensei who's amusement was obvious if you had learnt to read a Hyuga face.

She heard a splash and looked back to the boys seeing that Yama had indeed fallen beneath Naruto's relentless assault. She watched at the red head pulled the Nara from the water and aided him in standing on the surface again. '_He didn't do that for me.'_ She thought bitterly, momentarily forgetting that had he done so he would have found himself in the water as well.

"Good, now do it again." She heard Hanuba say and repressed a groan, great, now she was going to have to go the entire day with wet clothes, or at least until they stopped for lunch. Still there was a silver lining in all of this, '_At least I'm not covered in blood like that time in Mori no Kuni._ Although now that she thought about it that was Naruto's fault too, she gritted her teeth, he was soo getting a serious beat down.

XXX

It was a tired and wet team eleven that returned to the bridge builder's house that night. Much to Rin's chagrin and Hanuba's silent amusement, Naruto had managed to avoid falling into the water, right up until the end. Upon their arrival they saw that Team Seven was already there. Naruto looked at each of them; Sakura seemed to be immensely pleased with herself if the intensity of her attempts to get Sasuke to go on a date with her were any indication. He frowned; he hadn't had an opportunity to talk to the last Uchiha and it was something that he wanted to do now more than ever, the boy reminded him of Neji, only he didn't obsess over fate. He wondered what Sasuke thought about when he brooded, but gave up in the end. He assumed that it would have something to do with Itachi, which bought up a whole new kettle of fish.

He had met Itachi a few times, not many but often enough that they could recognise each other, and he had to admit that the older boy was a puzzle. If he was honest with himself, it was Itachi that Naruto strove to model himself off. Well as far as skills go that is, he personally wasn't too keen on the massacre part. Still the fact remained that he wanted to understand Sasuke, it was something he doubted anyone could claim anymore.

After dinner, which shocked the civilians with how much everyone apart from Sakura who was on a diet ate. Naruto stood up and went to sit outside, No one followed him, those that knew him had long since accepted Naruto's need to be alone at times and neither Sakura or Sasuke wanted to go and sit with the red head, well at first that is.

Naruto watched the blood red sun sink as nightfall came. He wasn't sure why he did this, but ever since he could remember he liked to watch the sun set. Of course the view here wasn't as good as the one he had when he watched from the top of the Hokage monument, but still traditions were traditions because they persevered in the face of adversity. So focused on his ritual was Naruto, that he didn't notice Sasuke arrive.

"Uchiha-san, what brings you out here?" Naruto asked when he finally noticed the presence of the younger boy beside him.

"Hn." Was the reply from his companion and Naruto was forced to try and work out what the boy wanted.

"Aren't you talkative?" Naruto shot back sarcastically, giving up trying to work out what the boy meant.

Deciding that he would have to be the one to get the ball rolling in the conversation that he had waited weeks for Naruto turned and looked back at the sun, only a quarter of it was still showing, and even now he could see that it was getting smaller and smaller, even as the shadows lengthened.

"What makes a person strong Uchiha-san?" Naruto asked, there was no reply but he could tell that the raven haired Genin was listening to him. He hadn't expected an answer so he continued talking.

"I used to think that it was my dedication to making my village strong, to pay them back for all that Konoha has done for me was enough, but that's not true anymore." Here he paused seeming to gather his thoughts before he began talking again.

"Now I think that what makes people strong is protecting the things they love, be it a village or people who mean something to them." By this point he was looking at Sasuke, although Sasuke wasn't meeting his eyes. "I used to be a lot like you, stoic, unwilling to let anyone in and I suffered for it, be careful and try not to let your goals consume you Uchiha-san." He said even as he stood up and went to walk back to the house. He turned suddenly and spoke again "There is a possibility that your eyes will only awaken once you are put in a life and death situation, that's the theory anyway."

Sasuke was shocked than a non Uchiha had a theory on how the Sharingan was awakened, but decided to worry about it later, it was a good point in any case. Instead he asked the question that he had struggled with day in and day out.

"How do you live with it?" Sasuke asked suddenly, causing Naruto to stop and look at him.

"I just keep going and hope that they will understand, but I always wonder… I never knew them you know." Naruto said the last part little more than a whisper before he turned and walked back inside. Tomorrow would be a busy day and he needed to sleep.

Sasuke remained siting there looking at the empty sky, his hands clenched and for the first time his hatred overtook the fear he felt towards his brother. He stood up and made to follow his red haired companion, ignoring the small part of him that said that he still loved Itachi, despite all that his brother had done to him.

XXX

Naruto looked at Sakura who was standing on the bridge along with him and the workers.

"So why are you two here?" Tazuna asked curiously, he was pleased he had the red head, from what he had heard he was supposed to be the best of the kids, both Kakashi and the Hanuba fellow claimed that he was going to ace the Chunin exams once he got the last of his issues worked out, whatever they were.

"Well, I'm here because I'm superior and finished the training before the other two." Sakura said proudly before muttering, "Especially Mito-baka." Naruto resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"No, you're here because as a first generation Shinobi you have the smallest reserves, Sasuke comes from a clan, as does Mito so it will take them longer to get the exercise down, especially considering Mito comes from a clan that's focus was having massive reserves." Naruto replied shortly, for the smartest Kunoichi of her year she didn't seem to have too much knowledge about the clans.

That shut Sakura up, although, he suspected that no one had ever explained to her the difference between first generation Shinobi and those that were descended from Shinobi.

"And what about you?" Tazuna asked looking at Naruto, who matched his gaze, the grey eyes betraying nothing although he detected a hint of mischief that was hidden behind the stoic gaze. It would have been impossible to see, had Tazuna not had a lot of experience reading people. '_Professional.'_ The word seemed to echo around his skull and he thought it described this Naruto Yuki pretty well really.

"My teammates need to work on some techniques that restrain the target and it's best if they practice on each other, seeing as many of them work well in collaboration, Sensei has gone to make sure that they work effectively. My talents run in different directions and I can't use the techniques I need to practice on my teammates easily." He finished looking out to where you could see the rest of his team, once again practicing on the water.

"What do your uh techniques do?" Tazuna asked, curious despite himself.

"Kill people." Naruto replied shortly making Tazuna blanch and Sakura let out a small shriek in shock. He guessed she didn't really have any idea about the profession she was getting involved in, or tried not to think of that part. But it was something he had had drilled into him when he was a child, when Kakashi had returned from some of the nastier missions.

"Um well I'm pleased that you're the one guarding my super awesome bridge!" the man exclaimed dramatically while Sakura looked at Naruto with a shocked look on her face, '_she's going to need to come around to it at some point.'_ He thought before he went to sit down and absently started playing with a Kunai, one of the few tools he actually kept on himself. He watched the workers going about their tasks with some interest, he found the building process fascinating and he really hoped he would get to watch the whole process.

"Tazuna." A man said as he walked up to the older man, Naruto's interest picked up, something was going to happen he could sense it.

"What is it Giichi?" Tazuna asked, although Naruto got the feeling that the man already knew.

"Well, um, you see, I, uh. I think we should stop trying to build the bridge." He finally managed to say, his voice rising the closer he got to the end.

"Not you too, why, this is so sudden, why is everyone giving up?" Tazuna asked, a hint of panic in his voice.

"Well you see, even if we have nothing, at least we're still alive right, and if we keep building the bridge, then Gato might kill us, or our families!" Giichi said his panic obvious.

Tazuna sighed, "Its midday, well stop today, Giichi you don't have to come back tomorrow." Naruto stood up and walked to the man, he had to admit he felt kind of bad for the man; he was trying so hard, He reminded Naruto of the Hokage and his attempts to get the people to see Mito as a person of worth.

"I have to go and buy food, will you two come with me?" he asked when everyone had left. Naruto nodded, it was no skin of his back and Sakura followed them, not saying anything.

Walking through the town, Naruto was shocked at just how bad things were, Sakura was far more vocal in her comments but Naruto kept his thoughts to himself, opting to simply observe, Hanuba-sensei would want a report on the situation anyway and he didn't want to miss an important detail.

They walked into the food store and once again Naruto was shocked at the lack of available food. He followed Tazuna back, frowning all the while, ignoring Sakura and whatever she was doing behind them.

XXX

Dinner that night was subdued, or at least it was until Sakura saw the picture. Which led to another round of chaos, although Naruto got his reason why Inari acted the way he did. Meanwhile Mito yelled at Inari and ran off. Naruto made to follow her but was stopped by Kakashi who simply said,

"Leave her, she needs to let off some stream go and get her tomorrow, I'll talk to Inari." Naruto nodded and returned to his seat, he would deal with this in the morning. He stood up and went to his futon. It had been an oddly draining day.

XXX

Haku looked out at the crisp, dark night. She would have to go and collect some herbs to aid Zabuza's recovery in the morning, she was looking forward to it actually, there was something calming about walking in the forest. Still she couldn't explain why she had such a strange feeling about tomorrow, something was going to change she knew it, but she wasn't sure whether or not it was a change she wanted in her life. As much as she hated it, the predictability of her current life made it something she wanted to last.

XXX

Naruto woke early and was soon dressed and heading out to search for Mito. He was slightly worried about his friend spending the night in the forest wasn't always the best thing for your health, although he doubted that the Fox would let her die. He had never worked out why the Biju were so keen on keeping their hosts alive, maybe he would be able to ask one someday.

It took him a while but eventually he came across Mito who was with another girl. A beautiful girl now that he thought about it, with inky black hair and pale flawless skin, close to his own skin tone actually. She was a bit shorter than he was, but it wasn't by much and as he got closer he noted that her eyes were a very dark bordering on black. She didn't seem to have a very big bust, but that was a minor matter compared when compared to how beautiful she was. He walked into the clearing and interrupted their conversation, something that Mito agreed with in any case. He arrived into the clearing and didn't realise he was staring until he heard her say, "Hello."

Naruto started and attempted to get his tongue under control so that he could respond.

"Uh hi, I'm Naruto, Naruto Yuki." He noted that she started when he said his clan name and her eyes widened, interesting she recognises the name, '_might be ninja trained in that case, in which case she's probably wearing wrappings.' _He thought as he studied her more intently than before, he noted the slight blush on her pale skin though.

"Haku, just Haku." She replied, shocked at finding a clansman here of all the places to meet, and a Konoha nin as well.

"It's a nice name." Naruto said with a smile causing the blush to deepen, enough to become even more noticeable.

"Thank you, but I really have to go, I have my herbs for my friend and I really must get back to them. And by the way I'm a boy." She said as she turned around and began to walk away.

"No you're not." Naruto replied smiling. This statement made her stop although she didn't turn around.

"How do you know?" She asked, not denying what Naruto had just said.

"You don't have an Adam's apple." Naruto replied steadily,

"Well you're right." She said, blushing very deeply at this point before all but running away, although Naruto noted that she moved very gracefully, despite her apparent rush. '_Interesting' _he thought, '_ninja trained and recognises my clan name, most likely from Kiri in which case she's most likely Zabuza's accomplice.' _

"Do you think we'll see her again?" Mito asked him, even as he continued to look at her retreating figure.

"I'd say that we will Mito, after all she's the one working with Zabuza."

Mito's scream of "WHAT!" could be heard throughout the forest, prompting Haku to move even faster, not sure what to think of the very handsome member of her clan that she was going to have to fight the next day.

Once again she cursed Wave, why did this place have to complicate everything in her life?


	8. Dances with Demons

**I don't own Naruto  
**

**Dances with Demons**

_Blank glazed eyes stared sightlessly at his own. It was a disturbing sight, but one that he had encountered often enough to have become somewhat immune to it, even if they were kin. A lifetime of combat tends to do that after all. He nodded to one of the others still standing. They were too far away to return the bodies to Kiri and so they would have to destroy them here. He didn't show any emotion, there would be time for mourning when he returned to the clan hold with the news that three more Yuki had passed from the world. There was a whisper behind him and flames appeared around the bodies, quickly burning them to a crisp, destroying any chance a rival village would have of gleaning the secrets of the clan or the bloodline that flowed within them. He turned and looked at the face of the other surviving members of their squad, one of whom wanted entry into the seven, Kisame his name was, had huge reserves already as well, not bad for a fifteen year old. He'd have to recommend to the Mizukage that the kid learnt how to wield Samehada, Yagura would listen too, their new Kage was very good to the clans despite the stigma they carried on the islands that made up the land of water. The Yuki had much to be thankful to the Jinchūriki of the Sanbi for. Suddenly there was a flash to the side and he turned, the Jutsu already on his lips as he prepared to battle this new threat. _

Naruto woke with a start. Gasping for air he looked around fugitively, Kunai in his hand. Finally he met the shocked eyes of Rin who was looking at him with a mixture of fear and concern. After several tense seconds he finally relaxed and stood up, hurriedly getting dressed. They had seen each other naked often enough for his modesty to have little to no bearing anymore and Rin showed no reaction to her male teammate's state of undress.

"It's time?" Naruto asked as he fastened his sandals and rose, ready to go.

"Sensei and the others are going to go there first; we're to stay here and follow half an hour afterwards and attempt to catch them by surprise." Rin responded.

She turned and chucked him his forehead protector as he turned to face her. He nodded and followed the girl downstairs where everyone else was waiting. The younger Genin showing signs of nervousness and Yama counting his weapon stocks for what Naruto knew would be at least the tenth time. Rin instantly moved to the corner and drew her Tanto, the sleek blade sliding out of the supple leather that she kept it in. It wasn't the blade she used when practicing with them however. This was the real deal, the blade honed to a razor edge and forged from the chakra conducting metal that all of the upper tier weapons were made from. It was a thing of lustrous beauty, which bellied its real purpose.

Naruto looked around and caught Kakashi admiring the blade, something that he shouldn't have been surprised by, considering that prior to 'The Incident' Kakashi had been a Kenjutsu practitioner, he still was, but the sword had long since been exchanged for any of the hundreds of Jutsu that Obito's gift had granted him access to. Hanuba looked up and caught Naruto's eyes, giving his student a quick nod before he returned to meditating. Naruto sighed and walked over to the table, grabbing some food and shoving it in his mouth, far too nervous to even taste it. The dream had put him on edge, both it and the others like it had been growing clearer over the last six months and he was beginning to wonder whether he should go and see someone like Inoichi about it. There was also Him to consider. Naruto wasn't dumb enough to believe for a second that Orochimaru was done with him, and while he couldn't see how the dreams would work to Orochimaru's benefit, he knew that the Sannin was far smarter than he was and what the snake was really working towards would be hidden behind countless smokescreens.

He finished eating and drew the same kunai that he slept with, twirling it around his fingers in an intricate dance. They all had their methods of coping with the waiting that came before going into true battle, not bandits who usually wouldn't pose much of a threat, but a real battle between nins that had in some instances reshaped the land was nothing to be cocky about. He doubted that that would happen here, but places like the Valley of the End were a sobering reminder of what the most powerful Shinobi were capable of doing when they got serious. He would also have to fight the girl, the one who looked uncomfortably like the dead Yuki he had seen in the dream, if it could even be called that. Fighting a clansman or woman in this case after he had spent years trying to find out if there were any left was not the way he wanted that meeting to go, but it was looking increasingly likely.

He looked around at the modest home that they were fighting to protect; it was strange to think that civilians put so much trust in Shinobi, he thought. You would think they would fear them for what they can do, but they revere most of us as the ultimate protectors and flock to the villages, when in many ways they would be better of just killing us all off. He wasn't sure where that thought had come from but he couldn't deny it, civilians weren't the reason that the wars began after all.

"We're going to go now, stay here and take care of anyone that comes to try and take hostages. Follow in half an hour, and hopefully we'll be able to trap them." Naruto looked up and watched as Hanuba finished speaking and began to walk outside, Sasuke and Mito following, both radiating nervousness, but still doing better than Sakura who was shaking. More than likely they would be blooded by the day's end, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't curious about what changes that would bring to the three younger nins.

XXX

The waiting sucked. This was something that Naruto was well aware of, but it was reiterated every time that he and his team found themselves in this sort of situation. It had been twenty minutes so far and the three of them had barely spoken a word to each other or to Inari and his mother. Naruto grunted a futile effort to break the silence but it did succeed in distracting him from focusing too much on it. He opened his mouth to try and say something about when they should go, when the dull boom and splintering of wood sounded. Cursing he rolled to the floor, even as his teammates sprang to attention, weapons drawn.

"You! Tazuna's daughter, you're coming with us." The shorter of the two commanded, his pale hand grasping the Katana sheathed at his side, absently Naruto noted the relatively poor quality of the weapon and the lack of the Kunai and Shuriken that suggested a simple bandit or mercenary, rather than a nin.

"Mum!" Inari's panicked scream echoed around the room and distracted everyone from what they were doing as the boy ran into the room.

"We only need one don't we?" the other man said, his head with its ragged, patchwork hair bobbing up and down, an action that only increased in fever when his partner nodded.

"Good, I like killing the young ones they always scream loudest." Patchwork said as his head slowly rose, revealing a face that possessed a sickly yellow pallor and a grinning mouth that was in nearly the same state that his hair was. Naruto repressed a shudder at the man's nearly toothless appearance.

"Rin, you and Yama deal with yellow face." Naruto said, his cold grey eyes having developed the calculating gleam that seemingly appeared every time they fought. He heard their grunted of acknowledgement and turned to face the other one.

Naruto's chosen opponent then took the opportunity to glance around and noticing the three Genin he managed to get a confused, "Wha…" out before Naruto was on him, a chakra enhanced kick off propelling him into the man's chest and pushing them both out of the hole that the two invaders had punched in the wall. They fell to the ground, even as the bandit thrust out a hand to try and slow their fall, the sharp crack and successive scream indicating that a broken wrist had been the result. Naruto was heedless to this as he jumped to his feet, bringing his left leg down on the man's knee, causing a new scream to punctuate the otherwise silent and mostly morning. The red head then began to ruthlessly stomp on the man's cheat until he saw that his victim was spitting up blood. He roughly pulled the crippled man to his feet, holding the Kunai that he had been playing with moments before to the bandit's neck.

He turned to watch, as he heard Yama proclaim the success of the shadow bind, followed by the swift patter of feet as Rin ran up and kicked the other man's foreleg causing him to fall backwards, even as her Tanto swung in a graceful sweep, parallel to the ground and neatly cutting his throat as he fell, the blood erupting from the severed artery and splattering the roof as the entire body collapsed. Naruto tightened his grip on his prisoner as he began to struggle, having seen his partner's swift and bloody end.

Rin swiftly wiped her blade clean sheathing it and walking towards Naruto and the last bandit, who began struggling the closer the now slightly bloody girl got.

"He still conscious?" She asked her teammate, her eyes boring into his.

"Yeah, made sure of it." He replied, thrusting the groaning man towards her. She caught the bandit with deft hands and then unceremoniously threw him to the ground. Rapidly going through the hand seals and muttering words that Naruto didn't catch. Her body then froze for a moment before starting to fall. Naruto quickly ran to her body and caught it, waiting as his teammate rifled through the man's mind, ripping any knowledge she thought was useful from their prisoner. A useful skill to have to be sure. It took nearly five minutes for Rin to finish, and as she came too, he caught the look of complete and utter disgust adorning her face.

"You got everything?" he asked, Kunai twirling in his hand, he smirked at her nod and slammed the bladed tool into the bandit's eye, piercing both the eye and the brain, killing him instantly.

"He deserved worse than that." Rin muttered, glaring at the rapidly cooling corpse.

"Tell us later." Yama said as he emerged from the house, hardly sparing a glance at the dead man at his feet. Or the body with the flapping head that he had stepped over to get out.

"But he, they…" she began helplessly.

"Yama's right we need to move now." Naruto said bending down to clean his Kunai. Rin seemed to struggle with herself before snarling and turning to face the body.

"Scum," She sneered at the body and spat in the gaping hole that had been his eye, "Let's go, no one else is coming, but there are five missing-nin down there if you include Zabuza."

Naruto nodded stowing his now clean Kunai in the sheathe he kept it in.

"Let's go wild then." He said with a grin before turning and sprinting towards the bridge's location. He did so love a good fight.

XXX

Hanuba grunted as he parried another strike from Zabuza before jumping back and letting Kakashi take charge, this really wasn't his day. He was a Jonin and a good one for a branch Hyuga with all the restrictions that that put on him, but he certainly wasn't on the same level as Zabuza and Kakashi. Who were both high A, borderline S rank. Hell Kakashi had been considered an S rank back in the days where he'd held the position of Dragon in the ANBU, admittedly he had slipped since then but he was still an incredibly dangerous shinobi.

He eyed the other missing nin who were waiting in the wings for whatever reason, there was the one that was already fighting Sasuke and Mito too, a Hyoton user of all things. That in itself was surprising, he was aware of his students desire to find his clan, something he had considered fairly foolish, but he couldn't help but wonder what this would mean here. He grunted again, his students would be coming soon, and truthfully he needed them, Sakura and the client needed protection and he couldn't do that on top of fight three missing-nin simultaneously.

"Heh, I should have known that it would be too easy here. This is the end old man." He returned his attention to Zabuza with that statement and watched as the man flashed through the hand signs for a jutsu that he recognised only vaguely. There was nothing either he or Kakashi could do, Kakashi still trying to deal with the five water clones that the Demon had used to distract the copy nin and he himself was too far off to save Sakura or Tazuna.

The water dragon rapidly formed and curled around itself, glaring ominously at its targets before it slithered through the air towards them, its monstrous form casting a deep and dark shadow across the earth as it slowly gathered speed. Hanuba heard Sakura's panicked scream and was again reminded of the only other time he had had a teammate or someone he was working with die. His own Chunin partner from the early days of the Third War, it was something that still haunted him to this day and it looked like he was going to have to add another name to the nightmares that plagued him still.

"**Hyoton:** **Hiryū no dan** (Hyoton: Ice Dragon Bullet)." His attention was drawn to his three students, with Naruto in the middle, the boy's hands pressed into the water, even as it swirled and condensed, vapour and mist pouring off it. There was a moment of silence as if the entire area was holding its breath, Until with a sharp cracking sound the water froze and just as suddenly a dull roar drowned out the noise of the first dragon and another emerged from the watery depths.

The monstrosity, dwarfing the size of its smaller parent Jutsu slowly rose into the air, its serpentine body, pockmarked with jagged spikes and horns coiling and uncoiling as it rose ever higher into the sky until it towered over the battle field, revealing a tail that looked like it belonged on a whale rather than the great beast it was attached to. Red eyes surveyed the area for a moment until the construct roared again, and rushed forward, tearing through the tightly compacted water that made up Zabuza's own dragon before turning towards the missing-nin's position and thundering down, collapsing in on itself even as it tore through the earth. This all happened in the blink of an eye, before a mass of razor sharp icicles suddenly emerged from the ground ready to skewer Zabuza had he still been standing there.

The man chuckled for a few moments before looking at the Konohan contingent, "So you have one too? That make such useful tools don't you think?"

Predictably the older Konohan nins didn't bother to reply, and the only indication that Naruto had heard was a slight tightening of his mouth. Even as he slowly began to stand he began to look around for the girl, who Zabuza had just confirmed was one of his mysterious clansmen. He looked up and noted the three missing nin who were now making an appearance, their decision not to intervene earlier he guessed to have something to do with Zabuza wanted to redeem himself in the face of Kakashi's victory a week ago.

Just as he was about to call out and ask for orders, Hanuba was there beside them, while Kakashi continued his intricate dance with Zabuza.

"Naruto go and help Sasuke and Mito with the Hyoton user, Rin Yama you're with me here."

"Yes Sensei." Naruto replied before turning and jumping towards the ice dome that he had only just managed to find. As he grew closer a frown began to mar his visage. The technique wasn't one he recognised, but that made sense. He had the clan scrolls and the girl was no more than two, most likely one year older than he was. He came to a stop and tapped the construct, the cold having no effect on him, due to his ancestry.

"Solid, goanna need a fair bit of force to cut through it." He muttered out loud, uncaring of anyone hearing, considering that according to Rin's information all the missing nin were accounted for and fighting his comrades.

He looked around hurriedly, realising that he probably didn't have much time to do a lengthy study of the mysterious technique. He sighed; he lacked the brute force to pierce the ice, that was something that he knew from his own experience with the protective techniques that Hyoton gifted him with. This meant that the only thing that he could do was to try and get enough momentum and concentrate enough force to shatter the ice. He quickly began scaling one of the ancient trees that stood proud and strong next to the dome. He reached the top in seconds and paused for a moment, calculating the distance that he would need to jump. He then crouched down and making a quick sign of the hare ran his left arm down his right, not bothering with its name the variation weapon creation jutsu began to coat his hand in a cone of ice, a wicked point stretching out a further two feet from where his arm usually ended. A small grimace crossed his face as his hand was rendered immobile, he had never been able to get used to that feeling.

Concentrating, he pushed chakra to his feet even as he leapt in a graceful arc. He flew through the air slowly turning until he was facing directly downwards, his right arm thrust out like a diver, even as he positioned his body behind his arm turned lance and attempted to make it as small as possible. The dome loomed into view, which as he free fell through the sky and towards his target which he now realised was composed of mirrors. He thrust forward with his arm, even as he pumped chakra through it causing one of the mirrors to shatter into hundreds of pieces and the boy himself to fall through the air.

Landing in a crouch, he quickly scanned the interior, noticing that both Sasuke and Mito were on the ground, riddled with senbon needles. He would have to check that they were alive latter he decided, in any case it was unlikely that Mito would be dead, the Kyuubi would no doubt ensure that such a dismal end never occurred.

"You broke through my Demonic mirrors." Naruto turned his head at that statement and was rewarded with a masked figure looking at him from within the mirrors. He took a moment to study the figure and guessed that it was indeed most likely Haku.

"Yeah, I have to say I didn't think I'd run into a clansman out here." Naruto shot back, his words conveying his wariness; he was in an unknown jutsu and at a distinct disadvantage, the only benefits being that he guessed he had more chakra than his opponent.

"Nor was I, but I am master Zabuza's tool and as a good tool, I cannot let you go, even if you are like me."

Naruto barely had time to blink before the senbon shot out of the mirror, scarcely managing to dodge, he quickly made his now characteristic kunai and crouched down, low, ready to do battle with the girl although his willingness to kill her was another matter entirely. There was a pause and everything seemed to slow for a moment before another barrage of senbon came and Naruto leapt forward, his kunai held high , ready to bring their razor sharp blades down upon the ice maiden.

XXX

Hanuba grunted as he sealed another tenketsu in his opponent. The Iwa missing nin wasn't a famous one, nor was he particularly good. Well the man amended, he was likely a capable Chunin, but as a Taijutsu focussed nin he couldn't hope to compete with Hanuba. He ignored the sheen of sweat of his opponent's face as he struck again. Slowly but surely he worked his way up the missing nin's arm, noting that his opponent was slowing. He smirked, the first time that he had allowed emotion to show before he struck again, his hand pushing the required chakra and rupturing the man's heart. His opponent's body feel lifelessly to the ground and he turned his attention to his other two students, both of whom were dealing with the Demon brothers. He scanned their forms, attempting to find the flaws, the brothers were capable, but ultimately they relied on surprise and teamwork, something that they lacked here due to the lack of the hidden mist jutsu that was synonymous with their particular style of combat.

"**Kirigakure no Jutsu. (Hiding in Mist Technique)" **The Hyuga let loose a sigh; he seemed to have spoken too soon. Moving to where his students were, he reactivated his Kekkei Genkai, preparing to deal with this particular threat, trusting Kakashi to be capable of seeing to the more skilled Zabuza.

"Yamatchi, five meters to the left." He spoke quietly but his voice carried in the unnatural stillness that had developed with the advent of the wide area jutsu. His student nodded and quickly tossed a kunai, flipping through a couple of seals. He watched as the Kunai multiplied, it was a base form of the Shuriken shadow clone, forming illusions rather than the traditional physical clones, ultimately it was nothing more than a distraction jutsu, but it was enough for Hanuba to quickly move in and immobilise the target and take him out of the fight. He quickly scanned the area to locate the next one, as he closed in on the second brother he wondered with the small part of his mind that wasn't preoccupied how Naruto was finding his own battle.

XXX

The sharp clack of two blades meeting echoed in the cavernous space that the mirror dome had become, a pale blue light illuminating the hundreds of senbon that littered the area as well as the deep scratches that marred the otherwise flawless mirrors in the jutsu. Naruto grunted and with a push he managed to force the girl and the Tanto she was using back with one of his kunai even as he lashed out with his left hand and nicked the retreating girl's arm, the small wound joining several others on her arms and legs, each one a reminder of what Naruto was capable of just as the gash on his shoulder and the senbon dotting his body were proof that he shouldn't underestimate the girl in close or long range, two mistakes he had no wish to repeat.

Naruto paused gasping slightly, he hadn't thought that the battle would last this long, although his opponent was even worse off than he was, if the way she was acting was anything to go by.

"I didn't see you as someone who could use a sword." Naruto said as his breathing came back under control.

"I am my master's tool." Came the simple reply from the masked girl as if those words could explain everything, which, Naruto supposed they did.

"But I am afraid that we must end this dance now, my master will need me to deal with your companions." She said beginning the seals for what had become a very familiar jutsu to the boy due to the last twenty minutes. He rapidly began his own; a futile gesture as he knew that he couldn't get the seals done in the time that it took his opponent. Suddenly a surge of adrenalin that he hadn't had moments before sped through him allowing him those precious few seconds to finish the last sign even as the water needles sped towards him, all pretence at simply immobilising him long since forgotten.

Just before they could get within five feet of him however, a shimmering latticework of ice rose around him in the shape of an orb. The needles continued in their path, but despite their velocity they failed to succeed in breaking the rapidly expanding protective jutsu that Naruto had managed to get off.

"I didn't think you would be able to get a **Hogo kōri no dōmu (Protective Ice Dome)** off in the time you had, it is quite impressive." Haku said in the soft voice Naruto had come to associate with the girl, still present even in the midst of their battle. The boy didn't bother to reply, opting instead to rush through another set of hand seals before pushing his chakra out and into his makeshift shield. The nearly see through ice trembled for a moment before it shattered, the shards tearing through the air with the speed characteristic of Futon and all related techniques.

Haku gasped and jumped back as far as she could, sinking into the closest mirror she could get to and managing to avoid the shrapnel that the boy had created. That last technique had scared her, she hated killing, a failing that her master didn't like, but hadn't pushed her to do anything about despite how ineffective it made her. The boy before her however, she repressed another shudder and she jumped from mirror to mirror, the boy was like the others in the stories Zabuza occasionally told her, the Yuki, the clan of killers who controlled the ice, just as bad as the Kaguya in their own way. She was going to have to actually kill the boy; there was nothing else for it. She adjusted the grip on her short sword and prepared to deliver a killing blow from behind the boy when the sharp sound of shattering ice caused her to pause and look at what was happening.

The boy, '_Naruto'_ she amended, had managed to break her jutsu with one that was eerily similar to the way that her bloodline had reacted the day her family was torn apart. She continued watching with slowly growing horror as her jutsu fell apart, having sustained too much damage over the course of the battle, finally meeting its match in ice that was just as hard as it was, under the control of someone who was only too willing to cut it. Quickly she assessed whether she had the chakra to repair her jutsu, she didn't.

She watched as the Jutsu fell apart as the spikes radiating out from the boy slowly drilled through the bottom layer, the cracks spreading with exponentially growing speed. It was over, she had failed her master and now the only thing left to do was to ask for the boy to kill her, she was a broken tool now, of no use to Zabuza. Silently she fell to the ground and then to her knees and leant forward extending her neck to Naruto.

"Kill me please." The desperation in her voice shocked Naruto, of all the things he was expecting, that wasn't it.

"Um why?" he finally asked, his shocked mind unable to articulate a more complex response.

"I have no purpose anymore, I'm unwanted like you must have been, Zabuza was my way out of that, he offered me a purpose. You had someone like that too didn't you? Someone offered you an escape from having no purpose.

"Yeah I did." Naruto replied after a moments silence, the Sandaime had offered him a goal and given him something worth giving his life up for, a life that in the deepest parts of his soul he considered cursed even more so than Mito's. After all she wasn't the product of a mad man's delusions of grandeur and an impossible goal. There must have been something in his eyes because Haku nodded after looking at him intensely for a few moments.

"Can you do something about them?" Naruto asked, jerking his head in a sharp movement towards the unconscious Genin. Haku nodded quickly and removed her half broken mask, carelessly tossing it to the side before walking up to them and muttering a few words followed by the one handed seals that had made her such a deadly opponent. Then she breathed out over the bodies and the senbon disappeared, evaporating into the air.

"They'll be fine after a couple of days." She said before returning her attention to Naruto.

"Are you sure you want this?" he asked, it seemed unreal that he was going to go through with this, it certainly wasn't how he had envisioned the first meeting with his clan, but then again, a lot of what he had done in his short life seemed just as if not more surreal than this.

"Yes, please." She pleaded, Naruto sighed and got ready to perform an action he just knew he was going to regret, but who was he to deny the girl her wish?

The mist slowly cleared and it revealed a drastically changed battle field. Naruto turned and picked up Sasuke and Mito, effortlessly hoisting them up and over his soldiers, the chakra he was using to supplement his strength allowing him to mask the strain he felt after one of the most draining battles he had ever been in.

"Come," he said, turning to the girl, "We'll talk about this latter with your master, it looks like we're both needed." As he said the last part he nodded his head towards the bridge.

Haku turned to stare and gasped, where once the Konohan contingent and Zabuza's forces had been fighting, now Zabuza, the only one of her allies still standing and his previous opponents were confronting a man she could recognise even from here.

"Gato." She snarled in a hissing voice before she formed another mirror and dove into it, aware on some level that Naruto had followed her. She lacked the chakra to be of much help, but she would die protecting Zabuza to make up for her failure.

XXX

"So this is the Demon of the Mist? Pathetic." The man sneered, before turning to the thug next to him and giving a short sharp nod. The thug grinned and swiftly raised the crossbow that he was wielding and swiftly fired, the bolt speeding through the air and punching through fabric and into Zabuza's chest. The former Kiri nin fell, a stunned expression on his face even as Gato sniggered.

"Thinking that I would actually pay you? How stupid can you get? You were just here to kill a couple and weaken the rest so I could kill all of you damn ninja's…" He was about to continue when an ear rending scream rent the air.

"ZABUZA-SAMA!" the noise heralded the arrival of Haku and Naruto not a moment latter, both looking out of breath and nearly dead on their feet.

Naruto started at the men before him, there were more than one hundred and while they normally wouldn't prove to be much of a challenge they were all exhausted, the Gato fellow was certainly cunning and seemingly possessed of a low animal intelligence in any case. Ignoring his exhaustion he prepared to preform another dragon bullet, the jutsu would likely kill him, but the others might live. Just as he was about to however he felt what felt like concentrated evil emanating from where he had placed Mito when he began to go through the hand signs. He froze as he tried to work out what it might be and when he realised what it was, he grabbed both Haku and Sasuke and jumped back. Watching his neighbour and somewhat friend with an expression torn between horror and interest as the Jinchūriki awoke.

XXX

Kurama smirked, gigantic teeth flashing in the dank sewer he was kept in as he felt his chakra heal and push his current host into a state far beyond what she was capable of previously. Not that that was much.

His first Host had been a monster of a Shinobi, her husband too and for that he could respect them as descendants of the Old Man, despite the fact that they were pretentious and sanctimonious bastards. Kushina had been tolerable, not nearly as capable as her great aunt but acceptable. However this one was pathetic.

Her brother was much more capable and worthy of being a descendant of his maker than she was, hence why he had withheld his gifts while he watched his 'son' fight the other girl, the fact that his disappearance had been one of the few times he had come even remotely close to escaping Kushina also playing a part in his decision to let the boy prove himself.

Still here was an opportunity to kill the very type of human's he had used his gift to find and destroy when he roamed free. He roared when he felt the body rise up, filled both with his anger born from centuries of watching his makers dreams being torn apart by those whom he had saved, and chakra that could make even a citizen a threat to a nin.

XXX

Naruto watched with stunned fascination as the angry red chakra circulated around Mito, it didn't look like the cloak he had read about but he doubted that was necessary if she was capable of even half the things that the scrolls said that Jinchūriki were capable of. There was a flash and she was gone, before screams filled the air. The enraged jinchūriki ripped the bandits apart with the ease of a much greater being, unminding of the fact that they were completely incapable of responding. Finally there was a shrill shriek and the pleas of Gato offering the girl money if she would leave him alone, then a dull tearing noise and silence. Not that the silence was any better than the screaming.

Not two minutes later he saw Mito returning tears and blood steaming off her as she collapsed to the ground and began crying. Naruto glanced around, Haku was with the mortally injured Zabuza, talking about something, their voices were too quiet for him to hear. And Sakura had run to the Uchiha, while his own team mates were looking at Mito with the curiosity obvious on their weary faces. Hanuba was looking at them, worry clearly evident on his face, all the while Kakashi attempted to comfort his crying student.

The battle for the bridge may have been over, but he couldn't help but think that the consequences would be far reaching. He groaned and scratched the back of his head. At least they wouldn't have to fight anymore A rank nins for a while.

XXX

**Jutsu:**

**Ice lance: **Naruto's new self-made Jutsu, I had some vague idea about having this eventually develop into his version of the Chidori but whether I do that remains to be seen. It is very good at piercing should you gather enough force behind it, as seen with the way that he broke the mirrors.

**Hyoton:** **Hiryū no dan** **(Hyoton: Ice Dragon Bullet): A rank Ninjutsu:** one of the more powerful Jutsu of the Yuki, very chakra intensive, but has a sizable advantage over its parent jutsu (water dragon bullet) in that because it is solid it can create a much bigger dragon as the water particles do not need to be compressed to the same extent.

**Hyoton: Hogo kōri no dōmu (Protective Ice Dome): C rank Ninjutsu:** General protective jutsu, creates a ring of ice around the user and anyone within range. Can repel most objects, although it will struggle with high ranked blunt force or precision techniques, The Katon element also represents a threat when used by a truly skilled user. Has a number of sub groupings, the most notable is the chain that shatters the jutsu and sends the shards flying, in a wide ranging attack intended for small enclosed areas or when confronting a mass of people. It is highly inaccurate however and should only be used when it leads to a clear advantage.

**Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hiding in Mist Technique): D Rank Ninjutsu: **General mist technique of Kiri, major aspect of the skill of silent killing. A number of very skilled users, Zabuza in particular have shown the jutsu's versatility in battle. It cannot fool a Hyuga but Sharingan users will find their sight hampered by the mist.

**A.N: Wow that was a long time coming. Amazed at the interest shown in the story, seeing as I was contacted earlier in the week about when this chapter was coming Hahaha. I've been busy with Uni and setting up what are likely to be my living arrangements for the next couple of years as well as the various actives for the first couple of weeks that have prevented me doing anything much. **

**The chapter itself was quite difficult but I settled on this, the mirrors were broken more because of sustained damage rather than anything Naruto did at the end. With Hyoton I imagine that it can cut itself just as I think that Sasuke had he actually had a fire affinity rather than the lightning would have done more damage. I also think that Lava would prove quite effective against the ice but that remains to be seen I guess. Anyway next chapter will deal with a couple of Issues and the return to Konoha with ten onwards covering the Chunin exams, which while they will involve the invasion will have a different focus rather than the Gaara fight that dominated the cannon one. **

**I am also going through and updating the earlier chapters, the first one now having another 2000 words and to my mind at least seeming more like an actual chapter. **

**Read review ect and please let me know of any glaring mistakes, I'm not the greatest speller in the world and it is inevitable that I will miss some. **


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